When we bought our house we were so thrilled just to have what was and is to us a very spacious kitchen. It made it easy for me to get past the pink cabinets, taupe counters and turquoise back splash. I knew all that stuff could be eventually changed out, but the space would always be there. We've been tweaking and projecting since we've been here and when we realized we would be getting new floors last spring, it kind of pushed us to just finish the job. We don't live in a high end area of town or an upscale neighborhood. We didn't have tens of thousands to put into it, nor did we want to. But the bottom line was, it was uuugly and was definitely not going to be a good selling point if and when we go to sell this house. So over the years we have done a very low budget overhaul, with the biggest changes being made over the last 6 months. We are very happy with it and have already been really enjoying and making memories in our "new" kitchen. So here is a little time line of the process.
Okay so oddly enough, I still have the for sale brochure photos saved in my computer. This is the kitchen we moved into (it was staged while it was for sale.)
About 4 months after we moved in we tackled the 1st big project. My dad camefor the weekend and helped us paint the cabinets white. For me, this change made the kitchen much more bearable.
We did our best to tie in the tile, but then there was the horrid fluorescent light. And after a year, I was tickled pink to kiss it goodbye.
It was like this most of the time we have lived here. Then in March after a dishwasher malfunction that soaked, warped, and molded up under our floors, our insurance company replaced the floors for us (you may remember me previously blogging about this). So really it came down to the counters and back splash and being done.
Here the girls are being put to work wiping down the cabinets for me to put a fresh coat of paint on before they came to install the counters. (Why I thought I should do this
before the counter and tiling projects? I am entirely not sure. They are definitely now in need of major touch ups.) The counter top guys came in and popped on our new laminate in a matter of an hour. The tile, however, was a whole. different. ball game.
I just knew we could easily tackle this ourselves. Then I got about this far in and was beyond frustrated. Our kitchen sat with just this hole in the wall for a good couple weeks. It was tougher than toenails trying to get those suckers off! We finally got it in us to go at it full force and got 'er done.
Towards the end we FINALLY got a large sheet of the tiles off at once. In my elation I made Ryan pose with the trophy. We considered hanging on the wall, but stuck with our better judgement ;-).
Sweet victory. All tile and old drywall out. Now for the easy part- cutting and putting up the new dry wall.
Easy. my. big. toe. It was in this part of the project I was about an inch away from walking away and calling a pro. Believe or not, Ryan was the one that held it together. He was awesome through this whole thing and I was amazed at his "we can do it!" attitude. I was ready to throw in the towel and he kept us going. I am so glad he did. Two afternoons of blood, sweat, tears, and some minor electrical shock-age and we finally had it up.
Ah. After a couple weeks of looking at studs and insulation I think I might'a been happy just leaving it at drywall!
A few weekends later, we were finally able to start tiling. And this part was pretty fun. Ryan did a GREAT job using the wet saw and cutting tiles ( I couldn't watch the first time, but quickly realized it was a pretty simple thing to run. I assured him I would still love him with only 4 fingers.) And I really quite liked the actual putting the tile on the wall and that part moved pretty quickly. A few days later I grouted, then caulked, then we worked on switching out the outlets.
Here is a close up of the counters and floors
When mom was here we spent the week working on the accessorizing and color splashes.
This tea towel from
anthropologie was our spring board to work off of for our color palette. I would have liked to incorporate more of the coral and yellow, but it didn't work out that way, but I really love what we ended up with. You may remember back when my mom was here at the end of February, we painted the walls Valspar's Gelato from the Eddie Bauer collection.
And I would say it's finally done enough to make the big reveal ;-).
Here is the original "before" again for full effect:
And, drum roll please... after:
I feel like this doesn't fully capture the change because of the lack of natural light in my kitchen, and that is unfortunately not changeable for us. Here is another, I for some reason think this one shows a little better.
Before:
After:
A rug for in front of the sink is one of the only things left on my wish list.
And a little more extensive tour...
New nick-knacks over cabinets. Bye- bye primary colors. Nice knowin' ya.
I tried adding cup pulls to the drawers but they mismatched what was there just enough to make me just forget that idea for now.
We also got a new flat cook top (no gas for us) that the guys (Ryan and brother Ross) installed in the old counter tops. When they took it out of the old tops to re-install it in the new- the guys asked me "What did ya'll do, install this with a chisel?" Um... yes. After a margarita and a dead electric saw, I guess a chisel didn't seem like such a bad idea. Yeah, it was the old countertops =)
And one of the things I was most pumped over was the new sink. I loathed our old one. It was nice and big but had all these ridges that literally after 2 days collected a yellowish grime in all the grooves. Di-sgusting. This one is granite composite and I have been lovin' it!
The bar stools. They were a compromise that I am happy I made.
These are all ideas of what I ideally wanted-
But when being reminded of how disastrously these three kids eat and what a nightmare it would be to try to get them clean, my mom found these 3 Pottery Barn stools on craigslist for $60 for all 3. That is less than half of what I would have spent on one of the others and the best part is, I wipe the kids grime off and don't sweat it. So for now, they will work just fine (even if I did cringe a little bringing in blue painted furniture into a kitchen I just spent weeks tearing blue out of =)
A little better view of the tile.
A last minute finishing touch that I love was this mirror my mom brought that she still had from the house I grew up in here in Memphis. We saw one a lot like it while window shopping in a local high end interior designe boutique,
Market Central, for almost $400. Score. The size is perfect and having the mirror there helps open up that awkward space. I also love how it feels like it bring the white from the cabinets around to that wall.
(The yellow table to the left is going to be replaced by an old one of Ryan's parents. As much as I would love to buy a new table it would be just plain dumb at this phase of our family, so their old one is darker and will allow me to get rid of that yellow that is horrible against my darker floors. Perfect.)
So there you have it. Forgive me for the extremely extensive and lengthy post. If you made it to the end- kudos to you. Just had to include all the details of this 6+ month long (with much DIY) project. I doubt you enjoyed the ride as much as we did. We had a lot of fun working together doing this (Ryan and I on the work, and my mom and I on the decor) and I am so thankful and thrilled to have it done!
