Kitchen Remodel | Part One

This post has been a LONG time coming! We are talking a couple of months! This is the biggest project that we have ever taken on, and the end result is amazing. I am in love with my kitchen now. Doing a Kitchen Remodel is not for the faint of heart, and requires SO much patience, but it is worth it in the end. First, let’s start with a BEFORE picture since everyone loves a good before and after.

My kitchen before was fine, just starting to get dated and never really felt complete. We were missing cabinets above the fridge and dishwasher, as well as right next to the fridge. We have talked about re-doing the kitchen for a long time, but knew that it would take quite a bit of money. Well…..wanna know what got things started? Addie. Yes. Addie. My three year old daughter set our microwave on fire. We are talking 6 inch flames inside the microwave because she decided that she wanted to make herself some mac and cheese. I stopped the microwave when there was 30 minutes STILL left on the timer, and the house was filled with smoke. Serves me right for leaving her alone long enough to FEED THE BABY!!!  AH!!! She is so busy.

Anyway, John told me he would get me a new microwave for Christmas and we would mount it on the wall instead of put it on the counter to avoid the fire problem happening again. 🙂 Along with the microwave, John went to Home Depot and bought me two cabinets, one for above the dishwasher and one for next to the fridge. I had bought a cabinet from the KSL.com classifieds years ago that was perfect for above the fridge, and it was only $25! We built a box around it using 1/2 inch MDF and then attached it to the wall. Here’s the catch…..if you give your wife a microwave, she is going to want a cabinet. If she wants a cabinet, she is going to want to paint them so they all match. This is where everything started. 🙂 I decided that I also wanted to cut out the middle of the doors on the cabinet above the dishwasher and install glass instead. I got the glass from Jones Paint and Glass.

This is when we decided that we should paint the cabinets white. We knew it would make everything look so fresh and clean and we were excited about it. We decided to hire someone to come and paint everything for us and spent $1000 for that. (In case you are curious, that was a GREAT price.) We bought the paint from Jones Paint and Glass. It was a tinted laquer in white. It made the painting process so much easier! It does the painting and laquer in one step, and you can do a second coat after 30 minutes. If you tell your wife that she can paint the cabinets, she is going to want to put crown moulding on the top of the cabinets to really give it a polished look. We bought the crown moulding from Sunroc and saved SO much money! It was less than half of what we would have spent at one of the home improvement stores. For less than $100, we had crown moulding installed!

Here’s where things get a little more crazy. If you give your wife crown moulding and painted cabinets, she is going to want granite counter tops. How could you have a dingy counter when your cabinets look so amazing?! We went to Prestige Designs for our granite and were SO impressed with them. They brought samples to us to pick from and we found one that we just fell in love with . The granite is brought in from Brazil and is so pretty. They also threw in a new kitchen sink for using them for our granite. I chose the single sink instead of one that had multiple sinks.

You know where this is headed now, don’t you? My backsplash would have just looked silly if I would have left it the way it was, so of COURSE we needed to add a backsplash to the mix. We hired a man that I would recommend to anyone in a heart beat! He did such an amazing job and was done in three days. He is precise and professional. If you’re interested in his info, email me and I will get it to you. He does fantastic work! We decided to do a white subway tile in a herringbone pattern. You can pick up the tile from Home Depot for 22 cents a piece. We also got some skinny rectangular pieces to use to frame out the herringbone pattern and love the way it makes everything look complete.

At this point, the cabinets were painted, but the moulding and doors still needed to be finished. It was quite the process and we had been doing this for one month now. The moulding was installed, and now all that was left was the finishing touches. Oh, and hardware. Cause if you give a wife beautifully painted cabinets, she is going to need hardware for the doors and drawers.

Phew. I am getting exhausted just writing all of this down! It was seriously such a huge process. I wanted to make sure you saw the pictures of the whole process so you fully appreciate the final result. Tomorrow you can see everything all finished, so be sure to check back. You will definitely want to see how everything looks all finished. I know I can’t stop looking at it. 🙂