The Great Kitchen Renovation

I almost never use my digi-cam since the zoom is broken. I always use my mom's. But she was embarking on a trip to Colorado last week and needed her camera while I would be at the beach, so I decided to bust ole faithful out in the event I needed to capture a moment, which I clearly didn't. As I was going through my camera to be sure there was enough space I found all kinds of old pictures I had forgotten about, including some tender pics of tiny Sullivan which you can be sure you will be seeing in the near future. One huge batch of the pics were of the Great Kitchen Renovation the year I bought my house.



This is right before I moved into my house. I/my handyman father/contracted assistance added a lamp post by the street, changed the pavers by the sidewalk, resodded the grass, hung a porch swing, replanted the beds to the left of the house, and the bushes have grown like crazy in the front! Despite those changes on the exterior what I disliked most about that house was the kitchen. My parents agreed to help me finance some changes to the kitchen which took months of figuring out how to achieve the biggest difference on the smallest budget...i.e. what can we do cheaply that will help!

Here is a tour of the kitchen BEFORE. This picture is looking in from the dining room/butler's pantry.



Here it is with labels you help you get your bearings.



- Do not be decieved by the faux tiles. It was tileboard approximately the consistency of cardboard. I still have some left in the bathroom that is painted over, but after the Kitchen Disaster it will have to stay even though I despise it.
- The floor was all yellowed and grungy looking no matter how hard you cleaned it.
- The steel backdoor let in NO light which made the kitchen very cave like and dark.
- I'm not a fan of washer and dryers in the kitchen if it can be helped, much less when they block the backdoor so it won't even open all the way.

- The backdoor was off center to the room due to the pantry so there wasn't enough room to put normal depth cabinets on that wall...they would have to be the depth of top cabinets.
- That HUGE pantry to the left had a chimney in it from when they used to burn coal back in the good ole days (my house had a total of 3 chimneys when I moved in but only 1 fireplace...we are currently down to 2). It was awkward.
- Just before the stove there was a door into the guest bedroom pictured below.

(These two pictures are from the day I closed on my house...note the emptiness and offwhiteness of the house...I hate off white.) This is looking from the guest bedroom into the hallway and kitchen on the right...see the tileboard? The large man in pink, family friend and Realtor, is standing in the doorway into the Butler's Pantry.
The door into the bedroom is what led to the fridge being in the Butler's pantry. There wasn't enough room to use the door and have the fridge in the kitchen.



This is looking in from the dining room you can see into the Butler's Pantry on the left, see the fridge? That's right. It wasn't actually "in" the kitchen. Across from the fridge was an open recessed space equal to the cubby the fridge is in that has a window. The previous owner's had a small table and stereo in it...I can't find that picture anywhere. I think it's on mom's computer.



This is looking from the kitchen through the Butler's pantry into the dining room.



And we're back to the kitchen. Note the absence of a dish washer. Dish-pan hands for this girl? Never. Kidding of course.

So hopefully you have the lay of the land at this point. All in all it wasn't terrible by any means.

The initial plan:
- new backdoor to let in more light
- new floor, probably peel and stick tile or soemthing cheap

- hopefully a dishwasher if I wouldn't loose too much storage

- sell the washer and dryer left from previous owners to buy new stacking washer and dryer and move into the Butler's pantry.

- Bring the refridgerator into the kitchen and set it in front of the door into the guest bedroom, just close the door to make it nonfunctioning.

- Replace the tileboard with beadboard for a more classic look. Which was an extravagant splurge that I really pushed for...which ultimately led to the demise of the plan.

- Once we did all of that we were going to consider either installing some top cabinet depth cabinets on the wall where the washer and dryer had been, buying some rolling cabinets that could function like an island, cabinets only on top, maybe some on bottom...we weren't sure that would be decided in the end and could wait if they needed to.

So this was our minimal list of things along with a few other projects around the house like creating a larger opening into the attic, the lamp post by the sidewalk, a light on the back porch etc. This was not at all the comprehensive list of everything I would like to have done including get rid of the pantry but it was the best we could do.

Months went by before the contractor, a family friend commonly referred to as Cute Brian, showed up to start the work. Finally he showed up one morning and I was thrilled for progress to begin. We didn't have much notice that they were going to show up that morning so in a panic we dumped everything from the kitchen into the dining room. I came home that evening to see what all had been accomplished only to be greeted with forboding news.

As they were taking the terrible tileboard down the plaster (1930s house = original plaster walls) simply fell off thus they were going to have to take the entire kitchen down to the studs. Cute Brian said, while it wasn't the original plan, it was going to be best to do an entire remodel instead of trying to piece something together using as much of the old kitchen as possible which was the initial plan. In just a few short hours the months of planning was out the window and we had to start from scratch planning an entirely new kitchen starting only with an empty rectangle...sadly I hadn't won the lottery in those few hours.

After getting over the initial shock, and fear. Mom helped me begin planning. One night after work we went to Lowes to have them help design the kitchen on their fancy computer systems, look at countertops, cabinets etc...all the things I wasn't planning to change.

Here is how it looked when they finished taking all the walls off...it was a very scary sight and renovation remorse overwelmed me. How could you look at these pictures and not think, "oh my gosh what did I do my kitchen was just fine before we started messing with it and now it doesn't even have walls!"






And here was how I lived in the meantime...no washer and dryer to use, crap piled sky high in the dining room, trying to cook out of a microwave in the dining room, dust EVERYWHERE...

Demolition began right before Christmas and I moved everything back into the kitchen just after Valentines.

Here are some more pics of the progress...starting to look like a kitchen again.





The final result included:
- Installing cabinets and counters in the Butler's Pantry under the window
- Moving the washer and dryer into the space where the fridge had been, installing doors to cover it up and a cabinet above it (it had been completely open before) thus creating a laundry room
- New back door to let in sunlight...this made the biggest difference of all. I will never forget walking in the day they installed it when the kitchen was still not much of a kitchen and what a huge difference it made. It opened the room up to have light let in from the other end.
- Centered the back door which made room for full depth cabinets on both sides of the kitchen
- Got rid of the huge pantry and tore the chimney down (which meant the ceiling and roof had to be patched)
- Added a second window to balance the window that was there
- Added a sitting area for people to hang out in the kitchen
- New floors (nothing fancy, just vinyl)
- Closed in the entrance into the guest bedroom from the kitchen side (there is still a door in the guest bedroom that doesn't go anywhere...one less wall to repair). This significantly helped the balance of the kitchen so the stove isn't just hanging out by it self on that side of the kitchen.
- We moved the ceiling fan from the dining room into the kitchen and installed a new light fixture in the dining room. And also added some task lighting in the kitchen.
- New black countertops, the old ones were green
- New cabinet hardware
- Added a garbage disposal...there wasn't one
- Added a dishwasher

- New mounted microwave/stove hood










All in all, it turned out amazing and was worth all of the stress. I am so happy with it and it suits the house so much more than the old kitchen did. Hopefully one day when I move out of my spinster suite we (which really means my parents) will get their money's worth out of it haha.