The Kitchen Remodel - Non Stamping Post

Many of you may remember me talking about remodeling our kitchen last spring/summer. I had quite a few request to share pictures and am finally getting around to it. The photo above is after it was completed, but I'll start with some before and during pictures before I show the rest of the after photos.

Here is a look at the old kitchen.  It wasn't horrible, but it lacked storage in a big way. You can see I had cereal boxes on top of the fridge, bread in the corner, not to mention clutter (and this was on a good day). The ceramic tile counters, aside from being dated with those wide, dark grout lines, were starting to fall out and some were cracked or broken. The counters were the driving force in deciding to do the remodel. They needed to be addressed, so we had to decide whether to put new counters on a kitchen we weren't happy with or invest in a whole new one.

Here is another view, this time from the family room looking into the kitchen. Another issue was the style of the cabinets didn't suit the style of the house. They were short and stubby and country looking, but the house has angular, modern lines and tall ceilings.

Our family room is very narrow and the only place to put the TV was up against that counter/bar/pony wall, which looked terrible. There was always a tangle of cords and wires for the misc. equipment. The refigerator was right on the other side of that wall and there was just barely enough room to open it and nobody could walk by if you were standing there.

Well, those are just a few of my complaints, I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

Here is a look after we tore out the center counter area and put in studs for the new wall. Mike did most of that part. I just added the cross pieces and did some electrical. We added a lot of cross pieces to provide extra support because of the cabinet configuration on the kitchen side.

This one is with most of the cabinets ripped out and patching the wall. You can see we kept the sink cabinet in as long as possible. Once that goes, the clock really starts ticking to get it done. Hard to live without a kitchen sink.

Now for the after photos. I got a longer counter. The sink used to be offset to the right and now it is centered in front of the window. I love the corner cabinet with the swivel shelves inside.

The upper cabinets used to be 33 inches high, now they are 39 inches and seem to fit the design of the house better. The counter tops are Silestone and darker in person than they are looking in the photos.

Another angle. The stove is moved over to the right about 20 inches and over laps where the refrigerator used to be. I now have plenty of elbow room on either side of the stove and you can walk by even if the oven door is open.

Where that lone counter/bar/pony wall was, now sits the refrigerator with a pantry on one side. With the refrigerator moved, I now have a work triangle. I never realized how important that was until I had it. It really does make a difference.  

A different angle of the sink. I love having the large single sink. This was something I had been contemplating for some time and nearly forgot when we were looking at sinks! I've never been one to fill up two sinks, one for washing and one for rinsing. Most stuff goes in the dishwasher and for the few things that get hand washed, I just squirt a dab of dish soap and wash it with a bit of running water. The great thing about the single sink is practically anything fits in it. My oven racks, largest roasting pan, even my big cookie sheet fits flat in there.

Another view from the family room. This used to be a really dark area of the kitchen. The tile backsplash was one of the last things we finished. Mike did the cutting for me, while I measured and then laid the tiles after he cut them.

Another view from the family room. Here you can see the new finished wall along with the TV area. We built in conduit for the cords, so they get run inside the wall to the TV. Got that new TV just in time for the NBA finals last year. Mike is a Laker fan, so that was timely.

Another view of the TV wall and the cabinets on the other side.

Same cabinets, slightly different perspective.

And here is the cabinet that is the reason it took us so long to complet the remodel. I really love having this tambour corner cabinet for the toaster and bread and such, but we came close to giving up on it. When it first came, the sides were unfinished, so we had to send it back. Since it was the designer that ordered it wrong, the manfacurer wasn't in a big hurry to get it to us, so it took three months! In the meantime, we coudn't complete the trim work or tile that had to go around this cabinet (at least the rest of the kitchen was done). It finally got here and I when I took it out of the box, it was damaged! Yikes! Back it went. This time it was the manufacurers fault, so it only took three weeks to get a replacement. It was delivered to Home Depot. They called us to come pick it up. They lost it! Yup, they really did. They did eventually find it and we got to take it home. By then it was early fall and Mike was too busy with work to take time off to finish everything.

I had the designer bump out the sink a bit so I would have a little extra room behind the sink. Really glad we did that! We also had them make us a matching windowsil from the same Silestone as our counter. That is really cool since it was wood before and I do a lot of splashing.

Well that was probably a lot more than you wanted to know. Thanks for letting me ramble on about non-stamping stuff. I hope you have a great day!