Kitchen Redux - Before, During, and After

OK. We love our house. It's the perfect little house for sort-of-newlyweds like us. Sure, it's a little tight on storage space, but it's become so cozy and home-y since I moved in just after I met Kevin over three years ago. The house was pretty much a blank slate when I moved in, all the walls where a rather uninspiring beige, and the kitchen was all white. And I do mean all white. White cabinets. White counter tops. Who looks at white counter tops and thinks "hm, now that seems like a good choice". Not so much. White counter tops show EVERY last little speck of everything. Did your blueberry smoothie get a little messy? Enjoy that purple stain for the next three weeks. Little dribble of red wine from the other night? Get out the gel bleach, or you'll be looking at it forever.

The cabinets, which had really been mostly functional for the last three years, were starting to make me nuts. They were a 'custom' job, to be generous, and they were all sorts of odd sizes and all at least a little lopsided. Drawers wouldn't stay on their tracks, my husband (knowing that I get a little depressed after New Year's) suggested that we tackle the kitchen in January to give us a project to work on. After shopping around a little, and weighing the benefits/drawbacks of doing fully-finished cabinets versus getting unfinished ones and painting/staining them ourselves, we decided to go with American Woodmwark cabinets through Home Depot.

These are the cabinets before. Forgive the pictures, they're terrible iPhone photos that I took once I realized that we were starting to take off cabinet doors, and then realized that we didn't have "before" shots.

It's not until I look at these pictures that I realize how cramped the old kitchen was. Check out how the stove is pressed right up against the corner cabinets. The whole cabinet space next to the stove was pretty much useless because the cabinet door to the right of the stove wouldn't open all the way with the oven door in the way. 

Check out the crooked-ness. It's almost scary how easily the old cabinets came down once we started tearing things out. They were made of pretty flimsy MDF and wood paneling. 

You get the idea though. Scary particle board cabinets with stark white counter tops. The deep teal on the walls is all me, though. That's the color I decided was the best possible color to paint the kitchen when I moved in. Hindsight is 20/20, and now my mom can say she told me so, because she did. Multiple times.

And here is our teeny tiny cramped little kitchen once all the old crappy cabinets had been ripped out, we removed that awkward header thing (what do you call that?) that used to be above half of the cabinets. I cannot even tell you how huge the room felt after we had finished that part. The not-so-fun part was basically not having a kitchen for about three weeks.

Aaaaaaand (drumroll, please!) here are our newly installed beautiful cabinets and our counter tops that look like fancy granite, but are in fact laminate purchased from Home Depot. I cannot overstate how much BIGGER our kitchen feels now. I feel like I could host a dance party in there or something. The extra few inches between the bottom cabinets and top cabinets makes the room feel so much more open.

Finally, the stove is more centered on that wall. We got so much more prep space. Or, as Kevin and I have been jokingly saying to each other all week "so much room for activities!". You may have to see Stepbrothers to fully appreciate the hilarity of that joke. But seriously, so much room for activities. 

Our beautiful granite double-sink. We chose it in a nice oatmeal color, which goes really nicely with the countertop. The faucet is one of my favorite things about the kitchen. It looks pretty industrial, I'll admit, but it's similar to the kind of faucet you'd see in a restaurant kitchen used for dishwashing. We got both the sink and faucet from Amazon, which I'm loving because I got a chance to check out all the user reviews prior to purchase. Plus, with our Amazon Prime account, we got free shipping. Winner winner!

The new corner of our kitchen. I cannot even tell you how much space we gained from a corner cabinet on top, and a large double lazy-susan cabinet on the bottom which serves as our pantry. Again, so much space for activities! 

The Kinnetts know how to party. That X-shaped cabinet is to hold wine, and at last count we figured we could store 13 bottles of wine in that thing. I'm also in love with our fancy new countertop. It has the look of granite, but it's actually laminate. We went with a sandy coral color that has a bull-nose finish on the front and the back piece. That pink album in my cookbook stand is the awesome recipe book that my mom made me. I love having all of our family recipes close at hand. 

I can hardly wait to pick out some b-e-a-utiful backsplash tile, and get to work picking out the wall color! Then comes the even MORE fun part of picking out cute fabric for the curtains, and fun prints for our brand new kitchen! Here are some of the things I've been considering:

Some pretty sea-glass colored subway tile

Martha Stewart's "Mushroom" would keep the feel of the kitchen warm, and I love the clean look of gray. 

Love this pretty ombre chevron fabric from Spoonflower, and I think it would make perfect kitchen curtains. They have such cute patterns, though, that it's hard to pick just one!

10 Things I Learned While Re-Doing Our Kitchen (So Far): 

10) People at Home Depot know what they're talking about for the most part

9) You will make twice as many trips to Home Depot than you are anticipating

8) Boxed cabinets take up a HUGE amount of space in your house

7) Even the most amazing cook will have a hard time coming up with meals if the only functioning appliance is a fridge

6) Paper plates are your friend, because they keep you from having to wash dishes in the bathroom sink

5) Washing dishes in your bathroom sink is weird and unpleasant. Also, the fact that our coffee maker took up residence in the bathroom during the renovation was less than awesome. Don't get me wrong, I like the convenience of having coffee nearby while I'm getting ready in the morning, but having to figure out whether to plug in my curling iron, blow dryer, or coffee maker into the two available bathroom sockets was the Sophie's Choice of my mornings

4) Silicon is a big part of installing kitchen sinks and counter tops. Silicon is super messy stuff, and you might ruin the sleeve of one of your comfiest t-shirts when you accidentally get a HUGE glob of it on yourself.

3) Dads know a lot. Between Kevin's dad and my dad (and our moms, too!) we got so much help figuring out how to do things. My mom was super sweet and helped me pack up our kitchen stuff pre-reno, and even came over yesterday with a box of fresh donuts and helped me put everything back in all the cabinets - I was totally overwhelmed with trying to find 'homes' for all of my kitchen stuff. Kevin's mom was super sweet and brought over lunch almost every day that we were working on the kitchen. Thanks to them, we didn't starve while we worked, we know what plumbers putty is, and what a pilot hole is, and how to mount cabinets that will actually stay on the wall. We also mostly avoided any panic/regret/"Oh my gosh why did we do this" moments. Good times.

2) Excedrin should make a special dosage for home renovations. Seriously. During this process, everything from our kitchen was in our bedroom and bathroom, and the office and dining area were pretty much full of our new kitchen cabinets. Having to step over boxes of canned goods and kitchen appliances when we got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night got old FAST.

1) You will make a mental list of how much you will get accomplished in one day. Take that list and cut it in half, because things take SO much longer than you'll anticipate!