They say that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and over the years I’ve watched my family prove this statement to be true. Holidays with family and friends, birthday celebrations, cakes for passing drivers ed, Taco themed birthday dinners for “Cinco de Autumn,” or my personal favorite – Sunday mornings blasting music, cooking pancakes and eggs for family breakfast, while my husband and the girls dance around the island – all of this happens in the heart of our home.
….so when my husband told me that this was THE one, the house for us….and I saw the kitchen, well, let’s just say I didn’t get it. There was NO possible way he saw us making memories with our family in that kitchen. I’ll give it to him, he had the vision when I couldn’t see it. I remember saying things like he was crazy, I hated the kitchen, no way was I living here…all bratty, I’ll admit it. And yet here we are over 4 years later, in a home I’ve grown to love. And with a kitchen I continue to admire.
In case you are wondering what could have been so bad about the kitchen pre-renovation….I’ve provided some wonderful pictures for you here. It felt very small and dark, very closed off. It had this strange half wall that the fridge door hit when you’d close it, and if you wanted to get to the pantry you had to walk AROUND the wall and down the hall to access it. There was also a quarter wall at the dining room entrance, I think the goal was to create a hallway of some sort….I’m not sure, it didn’t make sense. These walls blocked your line of sight into the dining room, which I didn’t love. Everything about it was just wrong, it didn’t feel welcoming.
Images are taken from old real estate listings I found online
One of the first things we asked about in the home inspection, was whether or not the 2 walls we wanted to take down were load bearing. For me, it was a deal-breaker, and I told my husband that if the walls couldn’t come down, I wouldn’t want to move forward. Once we found out they could come down, I started to get a little excited. We both had been talking about how we’d love to get a house with good bones, and make a project out of it. Neither of us love cookie-cutter new build homes, we like a little charm and character, and the chance to make this 1950’s home our own was exciting.
After months of back and forth with the seller – including him taking the house off the market after our first offer, only to call us back 3 months later to accept our offer – we were in! There is a video on social media somewhere of us surprising the girls with the house – thinking about their reactions to this day still gives me goosebumps. They were so happy!
Day 1 we popped a bottle of champagne, jumped in the pool, and immediately went to work on ripping the kitchen apart. The whole kitchen was gutted down to the studs, and my husban, father, and father-in-law took on taking down the walls. For the record – this was the first renovation project either of us had ever gone through, and it was mentally exhausting and thrilling at the same time. Out went the cabinets, countertops, plumbing, tile floors, and the ugly 1990’s neon light. We had a hammer throwing contest, which was fun, and I remember the girls laughing as they chucked that hammer to try and break through the sheet rock.
When it was all gone, I took a step back, really let it sink in that we would be without a kitchen for 2+ months….and I got a little nervous. The fridge and microwave were hooked up in the garage, but we had no stove, no sink, no walls for 62 days. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all made on the grill, and dishes were washed in the sink in the garage. It was interesting, but we knew it would be worth it.
Opening up the kitchen Quarter wall into the dining room
We worked with a local kitchen designer for the cabinets, and he came out and gave us 3 layouts that he thought would work best. We both knew going into this that we wanted an all white kitchen, so selecting the cabinet color and style was an easy choice. The square footage of the kitchen isn’t very big, and with there only being 2 smaller windows along the back wall, it makes the space feel smaller and darker than it is. So for us, a white kitchen was a must. A kitchen island was top on my wish-list, and again with the size we had to work with, I was a little nervous that it wouldn’t fit in the design. I was thrilled when the designer was able to make it work, all it required was for us to shift around the layout of the appliances. We were able to leave room for 3 seats at the island, added in a pull out-drawer for our trash/recycling, and added bead board paneling around the three exposed sides to dress it up a little bit. Rather than opting for taller cabinets that go flush to the ceiling, (we thought it would be wasted storage space and not easy to reach) we went with a pretty double layer crown molding, and also framed in the area for the fridge.
Once the cabinets were ordered, we took to picking out countertops. This was actually SO much harder than I thought it would be, because we wanted white, and my husband really wanted granite. Finding a pure white granite was basically out of the question, so it came down to finding one that was white enough without having too many veins. After visiting a few places, we both fell in love with the white, gray, and flecks of burgundy combo found in “River White” granite.
While all of these decisions were being made, our families were helping us with the walls. To save some money, we did the demo work ourselves, and my father-in-law and his brother did the sheet rocking and patching for the new walls. We paid them in lunch, dinner, and beverages. Once the new walls were up, I took on the task of priming and painting, waiting for the cabinets to be installed. We also had to run new electrical throughout the space, moving outlets and switches that were once in the walls we took down, update some old faulty wiring that wasn’t up to code, and had to move the gas line for the new layout of the kitchen.
Next was picking out the back-splash. Again, knowing the size of the kitchen, I wanted to keep the back-splash simple, and opted out of having the 4 inch granite back-splash piece installed with the counters. The wall space between the counters and cabinets is only 19 inches, and I didn’t want a huge piece of granite there. I felt like it would be too much. I would LOVE to have a beautiful tile back-splash, something bold and unique, but again, I always thought about the best ways to make the kitchen feel bigger and brighter, so I focused instead on doing a classic white subway tile. After bringing a few samples home and letting them sit on the counter for a few days, we decided on a small porcelain mosaic subway tile. My dad later installed this with a white grout, and the end result was beautiful.
The appliances were included with the sale of the house, and seeing as they were all less than 3 years old, we were perfectly fine with keeping them. My in-laws eventually gifted us with their “old” fridge when they redid their kitchen – a french door style fridge that was only 1.5 years old, so we swapped ours out for that. Seriously, our families are the best.
After 62 long days, we finally had the bones of a kitchen! Cabinets and counter tops were installed, appliances were brought back in, and we no longer had to wash our dishes in the garage! The girls were thrilled, because they were over all the meals on the grill. At least it was summer, cooking 3x a day for 2 months on the grill in the winter would have been a totally different story!
Pre-backsplash install
Over the years our kitchen has seen some small changes – new pendant lights, different bar stools, new ceilings – but at every phase, I still love it just as much as when it was first finished. Yes, aesthetically it’s pretty to look at, but for me, its more about the memories made. I love looking out the window over the sink to the backyard, watching the girls swim and hang out with their friends, or looking out at our families sitting around the fire pit. Hosting Thanksgiving dinner for 12 every year, everyone gathered around the island laughing while dinner is being prepped. I think about the times one of us have sat at the island, the lights turned off to sing “Happy Birthday”, or when the girls come home asking me to make them a sandwich, saying it doesn’t “taste as good” when they make it. I think about all the countless chats about school and life and boys. So many great memories have been created in the heart of our home, and I look forward to creating even more in the years to come.
July 2015 November 2019
2 thoughts on “Our Kitchen Renovation…four years later and still loving it.”
What a transformation, the final results look like they came out of a magazine. Can’t wait to see your next post.
Such a wonderful story, and it doesn’t even have an ending yet! It is amazing what you can do if you have a vision, and allow yourself and others to work together to create something using out of the box thinking!! Great job….
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