Kitchen Makeover part 1

I am so excited to share our new kitchen that I can't wait any longer. I had hoped to wait until every detail was finished. Every window treatment decided on and hung, every accessory in its place. While I trust that this will eventually happen, I just can't wait any longer. I don't have any "before" the "before" pictures but I am going to start with what it looked like when we bought our house. Since then, we painted cabinets and painted the wallpaper. It looked much better but was still difficult to make functional and the cabinets were pitiful. We have now been blessed with everything new and improved. Okay, let's get started with the tour...

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
This is the best picture I can find that shows just how yuck this kitchen was before we changed anything. Claudia is the good in this picture! Well, actually, at this point we had already put in our hardwood so I don't get to show the lovely linoleum that we had before. Notice the fruit wallpaper and the almond/tan colored cabinets. Pay close attention to the tarnished brass hardware. We also had an almond gas cook top that I could not stand, nor could I cook on it. I'm electric all the way! What this picture does not show is that in the breakfast room, there was a chair rail with panelling below it that had been painted tan. Look closely at the two doors above Claudia's head and notice how they are not even on the bottom. That was pretty much true for most of the doors in the kitchen.

A little paint goes a long way!

When I was pregnant with Cooper, we had a ton of painting at our house. We moved in with Chad's parents for the week so I wouldn't have to smell all the fumes, or live in the chaos. We had the cabinets painted white and switched the hardware. Having the horrible cabinets that we had, I could not fine one single type of hinge that would fit all of the doors so we just had to paint the hinges white too. We had a great painter who put sheet rock mud on every seam of the wallpaper and sanded it down and painted it yellow. You couldn't even tell it had been wallpaper after he finished! We painted the chair rail and wood below white too. It was amazing what this did for our kitchen. I loved the updates and it looked so much better; however, it was still hardly functional and had very little cabinet space. There were lots of doors but some so small only odd things would fit in them. I took these pictures just before I started emptying the kitchen to get ready for demolition. And yes, there is always a stack of mail on the end of that counter! Notice how these cabinets hang from the ceiling and block the view from the breakfast room to the kitchen. Those really made it feel like two small rooms. They would soon be gone forever!

The breakfast room.

See the light in this room, we put this one in when we did the painting. No one ever commented on this light before but now that the kitchen is more open, several people have asked if this is a new light!

I forgot to add that we eventually got rid of the gas stove and I got a smooth black cook top that I loved!

I forgot to take pictures of what the kitchen looked like when it was empty. It was very odd. I also did not take pictures of the side of the kitchen where the fridge sits. It had a built in desk that was useless beside it and a couple of small cabinets above the desk and above the fridge. The desk as good for holding my microwave and toaster oven but it was not pretty at all. Under the desk was where we stored cases of juice and other "pantry" items that would not fit in our cabinets. It was quite messy but the only thing we had.

The light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer!

Here we are in the process of installation. I was already in love with our new cabinets. They were glazed to look older and they are perfect for us! We had the best builder who did a lot of little extras that we were not expecting!

Now we actually have pantry cabinets built around the fridge. He moved the fridge to the middle of the wall and built major storage on all sides. This is our old fridge. This is also before hardware and molding went up. This picture was taken the first day of installation.

Notice Cooper with his tools.

We are almost there!

And now these pictures show that we are almost there. I just had to go ahead and put out a few pretty things even though we had yet to paint. My yellow that I loved now had to go because it does not do justice to these beautiful cabinets. Hardware still to come and...stainless appliances! I never dreamed I would ever have something so nice! What a blessing!

On this wall we took out the built in oven and went to a range. We moved it over to the left a little and that gave us more counter space to the right of the range and made room for a lazy susan in the corner. Losing the wall oven also gave counter space to the left of the range. The drawers to the left are for pots and pans. A built in microwave...yippee! I love that! A double oven...I may even love cooking now! I love the hardware we chose. Basic black. Simple and perfect!

Claudia calls this our "fancy faucet". I love this faucet and I love that we have a deeper sink. I had no idea how shallow the old one was!

And now for one of the small changes that made a HUGE difference...no cabinets blocking the view! This room seems so much larger now that you can see through to the breakfast room from the kitchen! I love that we did not put those back in. Even without those, we gained so much cabinet space.

In one of the before pictures you could see the breakfast room. I am keeping the hutch and table and looking for new chairs. The amazing cabinetry builder, Wayne, has taken the hutch to his workshop to do his best to make it match the cabinets. He is going to paint it and glaze it. I cannot wait to see it! We are going to paint the table and get new chairs. The wicker chairs are so pretty and dainty and so NOT appropriate for my 6'5" husband to sit in after a long day of work. I wonder if new chairs will get us to eat in here...we'll see.

One Step Closer

The red turned out a little darker than I planned but I still love it. I am having to get used to the kitchen feeling darker because the bright yellow was so bright. I love love love it all. We are now waiting on the table and chairs. I found some mahogany chairs at Pier One that we love and now the plan is to paint the table the same color as the trim in the room. My previous plan of black is just going to be too dark. The hutch is back, and it is BEAUTIFUL. Wayne outdid himself on this old piece because it looks like a brand new custom made piece.

And now I cannot get anymore pictures to load on this post so in order to see "the rest of the story", you will have to read Kitchen Makeover part 2! I hope to finish that post tomorrow but for now, I'm going to bed! It has been a long day and after work and the football game, I do not feel like fighting w/my laptop! I will finish loading the pics tomorrow and hopefully get that post up so I can show where we are so far. My stepdad has the table and is painting it and the chairs are here but they are not put together! I was totally NOT counting on that when Pier One said they'd ship those babies!