Some Before & Almost After Pictures of Our Kitchen!

Our kitchen isn't 100% done but after being without a functional kitchen for over a month, I'm pretty excited that it is starting to come together and taking shape. The molding still needs to be extended from the dining room into the kitchen, the hardware needs to be installed on the cabinets and interior doors and the toe-kick along the bottom of the cabinets needs to be put into place.

The house is Brian's childhood home and the before shots are taken with many of his relative's belongings still in place. It was cluttered and messy and it's been a great deal of work to sort through it all. His family had the tendency to hold onto things - and by things - I mean everything.

Here are some before and after shots of our new kitchen:

Before (with previous owner's things) - looking from dining room into kitchen:

After (goodbye wall!):


Before:



After:


Before (gotta love that faux brick paneling!):


After:


Before:


After:


Before (this is before I moved in - luckily, the renovations started and the clutter was history anyway but it would have been the first thing to go! It would have drove me crazy!):


After:


Here is a basic run-down of what we actually did:

1. Completely gutted the kitchen down to bare floor and studs.
2. Knocked down the wall from the kitchen to the dining room.
3. Installed sheetrock and molding.
4. Installed new cabinets, appliances and countertops.
5. Installed Pergo flooring throughout kitchen, dining room and living room.
6. Installed new, larger size window for above the sink area (old one was broken and would no longer open).
7. Painted kitchen and adjoining rooms (Valspar's Frappe in the kitchen and Valspar's Woodlawn Snow in the dining and living rooms).

How To Fold Anything...

I came across this "tutorial" on Real Simple and thought it was extremely helpful. Particularly when dealing with how to fold a Fitted Sheet. Click here for the article.

Our New Kitchen Renovation Plan

We have mildly updated our kitchen plans after speaking with Sue at R&S. We will now have three diagonal, corner cabinets to provide for more room in our entryways/passageways and to make the layout more aesthetically pleasing. We were hesitant at first given that our initial impression of diagonal, corner cabinets were that they were lost cabinet space but after viewing them in person, they are rather roomy! Here is the new (and final) layout:

Bathroom Preview

Work began on the bathroom on Monday, August 25th. It has been a small nightmare! After being toilet-less for a week (yes, this is the SOLE bathroom in the house), we finally got it installed on Saturday, just in time for Labor Day weekend. The bathroom is coming along very, very slowly. The contractors worked through the holiday weekend after having a slow start at the beginning of the week. There were several other bumps in the road as the house is rather aged and many plumbing fixtures that needed to be replaced or repaired (as there were significant leaks between the toilet and tub) were no longer in existance. Newer and better products needed to be tweaked to fit with our current set-up.

Before and after pictures to follow shortly. Here is a (small) preview of some of the items which have been updated:

R&S Cabinetry

Our kitchen plans are ongoing - some things changed, some things stayed the same. Knowing virtually nothing about renovations going into this ordeal, we have learned a thing or two and hopefully have made some better decisions based upon those revelations.

At this point, we have decided to not work with Home Depot on our cabinets. Our initially meeting was not totally useless as Barb did give us a great kitchen plan to work from. The problem was, we were worried about the cabinet quality. The display models were not in the best of shape and a few things were considered "upgrades" that should have come standard. KraftMaid itself is an excellent brand (from what we hear) but they mass-produce for Home Depot so the quality of a Home Depot KraftMaid cabinet may differ from a KraftMaid cabinet bought elsewhere.

With this realization, we came to schedule an appointment with R&S Cabinetry in Pearl River, New York. They are family run and have been in business for forty years. I can't even begin to tell you the difference between someone working for a reputation and someone working for a paycheck. We thought Barb was great but didn't go above and beyond. Sue, at R&S, was very knowledgeable and explained everything in depth. We have decided to go with them for our cabinetry and are using the Omega Embassy line. We fell in love with a Pearl White color with Pewter Glaze maple door. Their line offers all wood construction and the drawer self-closing mechanism as standard features. The quality seemed much greater and the price was in the same ballpark as Home Depot.

We met with Sue at noon on Monday. We showed her the plans that we developed at Home Depot and she based her estimates off of that sketch. We decided on a color, glaze and door style before leaving. By Tuesday afternoon, she called Brian back with a figure that was largely comparable to the Home Depot estimate. However, R&S's estimate included molding and hardware whereas Home Depot's did not. I definitely think we got the better deal going with R&S. We got the exact cabinet color we wanted and added bonus features that we never thought we'd have (i.e. self-closing mechanism).

Sue's husband came out to measure by noon today. They work rather quickly and indicated that once Sue draws out a sketch based upon the new measurements and we confirm the design, it will take four to five weeks for the cabinets to arrive. R&S has a side-business for granite countertops and we will be visiting their showroom in Monroe, New York this weekend.

Until then, here is a sample of our new cabinet color (Pearl White with Pewter Glaze):

Our New Appliances

Based on the recommendations of others, we shopped around for appliances. Within a two week time frame, we made several trips to Home Depot, Lowes, Sears and finally, P.C. Richards. We went from LG to GE Profile to Kenmore Elite to Whirlpool to KitchenAid and all the way back to LG. We did a complete 360 degree turn-around which is fine by me because I was rooting for the LG appliances all along! Luckily, we were exposed to a bunch of different prices for the appliances so when we finally made our way to P.C. Richards, we knew that we were getting a pretty reasonable deal.

We faced a few issues with LG. For starters, we needed a cabinet-depth refrigerator due to space constraints. Sounds easy, right? This was by far the most difficult feature to meet because any refrigerator we liked was either too expensive, too wide, too deep or the handles didn't match. Finally, we sucked it up and let go of the dream of finding a narrow and thirty (or thirty-three) inch refrigerator. We opted for the thirty six inch cabinet-depth and said "buh-bye" to the larger pantry we were hoping for. Hopefully, this won't be as detrimental as originally thought as we are planning on converting half of the mudroom into a pantry for non-food items (pots, pans, cookbooks, etc.) so that will free up some other cabinet space.

We loved both the LG dishwashers and their microwaves. The dishwasher is sleek with the buttons along the outer perimeter so you can't view them when you're looking at the face of the dishwasher. Plus, it has that feature where you don't have to completely clean off your plate. The food particles will collect in the bottom of the machine and it will grind them to be flushed away. How great is that? (Can you tell I've never had a dishwasher?) The microwave is to go over the stove and the LG model was the cheapest out of all the models. We didn't need anything fancy like a convection oven so we went with the most basic model (let's face it - only things going in there will be popcorn and brownies to make a warm brownie sundae).

Brian had his heart set on a slide-in stove. Unfortunately, LG is just venturing into the stove-making business and don't have too many options. Currently, they do not make a slide-in stove. We bit the bullet on this one and just got the standard gas stove with the controls along the back of the stove. Hopefully it doesn't eat away at Brian too badly.

Below are some photos. Note that the interior refrigerator picture is not entirely accurate. We do not have a door mounted water and ice dispenser. This photo was taken purely to show how the interior is laid out (minus the doors). Our doors will have shelving where the more upscale model has the water/ice dispenser mechanism. Our ice making machine is in the lower freezer area. We will have the platter on the lower level of the interior and three compartments directly above for fruits and vegetables.

Kitchen Renovations Preview

After much debate and consideration, we have decided to renovate the kitchen. While the old one has lived a good life, it is time to update with new cabinets, appliances and flooring (I need a dishwasher)! We met with Barb at Home Depot last night to go over our design options. She was really great to work with - definitely knew her stuff which is helpful given that we, well, don't!

What we are hoping to do is:

1. Knock down a wall between the kitchen and dining room to open up the space on the main level. Counter and cabinet space is essential given that the kitchen is already small so rather than leave it totally open, we'll place cabinets on the base and have the countertop stretch around to create a breakfast bar area where we can place two stools.
   
2. Move the stove from its current location in the corner (it drew red flags as being a fire hazard becuase (a) its right next to a wall and (b) its only a few inches from the window) to its previous location along the basement door wall. That gives us the capability of having countertop space on both sides of the stove. To free up even more counterspace, we will be getting rid of the standard microwave and getting one that installs above the stove.
   
3. Get new appliances. Space being a concern, we like LG's line of appliances because they are sleek and compact. They have the stainless steel, french door, freezer on bottom refrigerators and a dishwasher that hides all the buttons. The refrigerator was important because we like that particular style but wanted a more compact one (i.e. less than 33 inches wide and not ridiculously deep). The dishwasher sold us on the brand. While we most likely will not be buying our appliances from Home Depot because better deals are to be had elsewhere (P.C. Richards) - it definitely helped to narrow down what we want and didn't want.
   
4. Get new cabinets (#1 priority). As for the cabinets, apparently the "standard" Kraft Maid cabinets came with particle-board construction for the boxes. We needed to "upgrade" to get all maple but it was an expense we were willing to swallow with the hope that they would stay together longer. We opted for a cheaper and simpler style door to make up for the upgraded cost. Our color is Canvas with Cocoa Glaze (former Vanilla Bean Glaze) and our door style is Bradenton.
   
5. Get new flooring. Ultimately, I would like the entire main floor of the house to be hardwood flooring. The rooms are small and I think the monotone flooring would enlargen the space. As of right now, the dining room is hardwood flooring (which is old and can not be sanded down or refinished), the kitchen is ceramic tile and the living room is brown carpeting (that has seen better days but Brian doesn't seem to think it needs replacing just yet). Hopefully there's some room in the budget to do the entire main floor. Otherwise, I think the kitchen and dining room will suffice for right now.
   
6. Get new windows. Luckily, the general contractor told Brian he'd be better off replacing the windows. Hopefully we can find some that are relatively inexpensive.

Here is an aerial view of what the kitchen will look like (click for enlarged view):

Here is corner shot number one where the refrigerator will be. Disregard the style presented here. As mentioned above, we are leaning towards the french door top with pull-out freezer on the bottom in stainless steel:

Here is the sink/dishwasher area with extended countertop. Currently, on the left hand side is where the sink is placed (not centered with the window) and all the way on the right, hugging the wall, is where the stove is. With the renovation, the sink will be centered so there will be ample counter space on either side and the dishwasher to the right. The stove will be moved so the countertops will extend all the way to the wall with a full size cabinet above. See picture for details:

Here is where the new stove and breakfast bar areas will be. Currently, there is a wall up in the kitchen where the breakfast bar is. That will be knocked down. The stove has been moved from the corner along this wall. The door leading downstairs presented a bit of a challenge given that the cabinets had to allow adequate space for the door to open and for one to get through to the door in the first place. The diagonal countertop and cabinet help widen the passing while maintaining cabinet and storage space. See pictures for details:

This is our cabinet color:

We are waiting for the estimate from the general contractor and hope to get the project moving along shortly!