I don’t think this post is going to propel me into creating a home design section of my blog. Not because of the results of the renovation (because those are beautiful!), but because I don’t capture it in a way that does it justice. I will stick with food pictures because I should have taken better pictures with the real camera instead of snaps on my iPhone. Convenience reigned supreme though, and here we are.
I bet you can still get a good idea of the difference this renovation made. The kitchen felt like it doubled in size. The island is AMAZING. The appliance garage is so helpful. And I really love under cabinet lighting. Let’s dive in! First, a look at our before:
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There was never anything wrong with our kitchen. It functioned well for us for over a decade, but there were little signs that an upgrade would be nice. Our cabinets were peeling. The island had a funny shape and I often wish it were just a bit bigger. Things like that. So we decided if we were going to do some improvements, it made the most sense in our situation to do a complete overhaul.
The plan was a total gut and renovation of the kitchen including: new cabinets, replacing the desk area with a large appliance garage, new range with hood, replacing the island and extending it into the eat in area to provide seating, and to bring the wall above the ovens to the ceiling.
I know it sounds silly because that is an extensive list, but I really believed everyone when they said it would be a 2-3 week process. Silly, naive little me. But I felt we had done the precursory work. We had the plans drawn, the cabinets ordered, and the contractors lined up. We hired two guys from our neighborhood to do the demo, so I moved everything from the kitchen cabinets into the dining room (whew- that was a feat), and we got to it.
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Things began quickly: demo was fast and even the dry wall to take the wall above the ovens to the ceiling moved along quickly. Then everything slowed down and there was plenty of blame to go around. We didn’t think to move the electrical outlets until after they had patched the drywall, so we had to cut into it again to relocate them. We decided to flatten the odd angle in the ceiling and had to call the crew back out. Our cabinet people mismeasured one cabinet and it had to be reordered. Then they forgot to order doors to the appliance garage which was another few week delay. So on and so forth.
I’m sure if you’ve done renovations before, this is not surprising, but for me, having the space I usually spend most of my day in be nonfunctional for an extended period of time got to be pretty frustrating. We made do though. I used my Instant Dutch Oven for almost every meal. We used paper plates when needed. We ate simply. We made it work and slowly we started to see progress.
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And finally, about 4 months after we kicked things off, the kitchen was COMPLETE! It was honestly biting off a lot more than we initially thought, but it was worth it. The renovation essentially doubled the size of the kitchen. It made it feel like a more cohesive space and offered a lot more storage, having the appliance garage instead of the desk area that inevitably ended up as a junk drop zone.
Drum roll please…
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Kitchen Renovation Superlatives
Biggest pain: having to repair drywall more than once because we forgot to move the outlets the first time, then moved the lights- lots of construction dust!
Biggest surprise: I truly thought it would be a 2-3 week project. It was 4 months said and done.
Favorite upgrades: double pull out trashcans, soft close cabinets and drawers, undercabinet lighting, the HUGE island space, appliance garage storage space and hidden coffee maker, hidden outlets, workstation sink with the grate at the bottom
Kitchen Renovation Specifics
If I missed anything that would be helpful, please let me know in the comments. Happy to share! 🙂
