the kitchen project : before and after

You can read more about our kitchen project at the start here, a list of what we did and some in-process working photos.
Only (ahem) weeks after promised, here are before and after shots of our kitchen. Truth be told, we're still missing the final quarter-round trim along the bottom of the cabinets and base so we're not 100% finished. But we'll call it darn close.

before...

 and after...

Our main goal with the choices we made was to have a bright, classic/neutral, durable, functional space that we could still be happy with in 18 years. We wanted to do absolutely as much of it ourselves as we could (which is why it took 5 months) to learn, appreciate and save some moolah. We were lucky that the previous owners had semi-recently updated all of the appliances and while they don't necessarily match each other they're in great shape and work perfectly so we didn't mess with them.

A few of the specifics:
The counters were really what spurred this entire project. They were very old plastic laminate with quite a few chips and stains - not to mention an awkwardly placed built-in cutting board an in-counter blender (a big metal plate with a button - when you pushed it a 30 year old broken blender popped up!) The counters had to go. There are obviously a lot of counter material options out there. Our absolute favorite is white marble, however its known to stain and these puppies needed to be ready for the long-haul. We didn't find a granite we were crazy about (we like a very monolithic look without a lot of grain/pattern to it) so it came down to solid surface (like Corian) or quartz/engineered stone. We really wanted a medium gray and had a hard time finding the right color in solid surface. Quartz is extremely hard and durable (again, looking for the long haul) and we ended up finding the perfect concrete-like gray.

It bugged us that the existing sink was not centered on the window - it was almost - but off enough that we noticed it. Also a personal preference, but we didn't like a double-bowl sink. We used one side 90% of the time and rarely touched the other. We had seen the Kohler Indio sink in a showroom before we even owned a house and declared it the perfect, most amazing sink ever. One big, beautiful basin with an offset faucet and drain. Extra bonus was that the offset faucet hides the fact that the sink isn't centered! This sink isn't crazy expensive - but it isn't the cheap basic model either. The quartz counters had to be cut to a specific sink dimension, meaning we were committing to a sink for as long as we have these counters (which is going to be a loooong time) so we decided it was best to go with what we really, really wanted. We were jazzed when this guy arrived.

The tile is matte white from American Olean's Profile collection. A very, very basic 3"x6" subway tile. We also purchased the coordinating edge trim pieces for our window sill. We decided to use a gray grout (I believe it's Delorean Gray from Home Depot.)

Heck yes that's a bottle of whiskey up there. Along with a few of my cookbooks that I wrapped in brown paper after seeing an image of something similar on Pinterest.
The floor is Johnsonite Linoleum. 'Lineoluem' has mistakenly been used to describe any sheet good flooring - when the majority of the products people are referring to are actually vinyl. Linoleum is a material that was used a lot in the past - it's being used more and more now as people chose it for the sustainable qualities (it's made with 95% natural materials like flax, wood, linseed oil and limestone) and the fact that it's very durable. We chose a medium gray that has a slight marbled pattern of lighter and darker grays and we've been really happy with it. Completely surprised at how good it is at hiding everything - our floor looks deceivingly clean even when it isn't quite so.

So many of the kitchen inspiration images I had pulled together had glass front cabinets. We didn't want to replace our doors so we got quote from a local cabinet company to retrofit our existing doors with glass. It came back around $230 (higher than we expected) - so we took a chance and tried it ourselves. My husband carefully removed the center panel (we tested this on one of the cabinets we had removed just in case). I had glass cut from Lowe's and put it in with clear silicone and added a little wood trim inside (email me if you want more info.) We were happy with how they turned out - and it was only $30!

That's the long-winded kitchen scoop. Let me know if you have any questions or would like more information!

grace

my Chunky Monkey, Babaganoush, Munchkin, Pumpkin,

le Chat Lunatique.

.

Rest in peace my Grace.

and there they sit

So I hope this photo doesn't offend anyone. I'm not sure why it would except that I can see where it might. So I don't know.

That being said, I love it.

I have had the two religious pieces (are these statues? trinkets?) for as long as I can remember. My father gave them to me when I was little and I think there was an association with my grandmother (his mother) but I don't know if the association was just 'she was Catholic' or maybe they were hers. For my entire childhood they sat on that exact shelf of my dresser. Probably with a layer of dust exactly as you see them here.

I bought the hula girl in high school when I upgraded from a 1982 Chevy Blazer to a 1994 sea-green Ford Taurus. Holla. I glued it to my dashboard and we bopped together for a few years. She even came to college with me. Then one day I was in an accident and totalled the poor Taurus. Thank my lucky stars no one was in the passenger seat because when the airbags went off that hula chic was like a plastic missile that definitely could have ripped some one's face apart.

This dresser still sits in the bedroom I had in high school. Over the years I've slowly taken things to my home or thrown things away etc - that widdling away that you randomly do every time you visit. These three are pretty much all that's left.
Holding down the fort, keeping it real.

the kitchen project : evidence

A better blogger would have done the dishes before taking the official before photo. And probably put these photos in a more story-telling order.

Same corner, three different looks!

Stay tuned for the final result!

the kitchen project : what we did

I've struggled with how to share the scoop on our kitchen renovation.  I started to go all Young House Love and write entire posts about every single decision we made. Which, on the one hand, would provide solid blogging content for the next four months, but on the other hand would probably drive everyone away (I just can't spell it out as well as the YSL crew!)

So this is the process post. With a list of everything we did (and what we hired someone to do) and next I'll do a post of progress photos.

For the dramatic effect of keeping you all on your toes, I'll post the finished product in yet another post. For the drama or for the fact that I haven't taken final pictures yet. It's one of those.

What we did (in order):
1. Ripped down the sexy coffee-house cartoon border. It took about 46 seconds because they put it up with a child's glue stick.

2. Ripped out the wall of cabinets above our stove - along with the microwave. I hate microwaves and I'm determined to never have one again. This microwave was giant and sitting way to low over the stove. Peace out radiant lover.

3. Painted the upper cabinets white.

4. Realized we used the wrong kind of paint on the upper cabinets. Stripped, sanded and primed every single one.

5. Painted the upper cabinets white.

6. Ripped out the plastic laminate counters.

7. Hired some nice young men to come and install new quartz counters.

8. Hire another nice man to come patch the wall where the previous owners had chipped out all of the plaster to put in the old counters. And also shot at the walls with a machine gun by the look of it.

9. Painted the walls.

10. Ripped out the fake-wood/laminate floor. Completely didn't match the rest of the house and was a floating floor (meaning not glued down) on a non-level substrate. So it was bouncy and needed to go. This took us 20 minutes - heck yes on the not being glued down.

11. Tiled the walls, backsplash and window sill. This literally took us over 30 hours spread over a few weekends but it was important to us that it was done carefully (we worried anyone we hired would rush vs. measure and level every damn tile). I tiled while my husband used the tile saw. Then I grouted while he went behind and cleaned. Probably my favorite part of the whole kitchen project and so happy with how it turned out.

12. Had the floor installed. We chose old-school linoleum (not vinyl floor that people call linoleum) This is a product that used to be used a lot - it's made from cork, linseed oil and jute.

13. Covered the asbestos encased stripper pole radiator pipe with a paintable wallcovering. Much easier/safer than the process of cutting it out.

14. Retrofit some of our cabinet doors with glass fronts (this does deserve a post of it's own as I did it by myself in an afternoon for $30 after a cabinet company quoted us $250).

15. Hung a stainless steel shelf over the stove.

16. Replaced all of the dingy, unmatched outlet covers with stainless steel.

16. Removed the ceiling fan that hung way, way to low in the room. I'd love to say we then put a finished plate over the whole, but to be honest there is still a hole in the middle of our kitchen ceiling.

Things that we still need to do:
-put trim back on the cabinets at the floor and re-install the transition strips in the doorways.
-install the new glass cooktop after I leaned on ours while tiling and cracked it. sonofa.
-eventually replace the lighting - very cheap track lighting that we don't love but it's not terrible. Someday.

Next up, progress photos!