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Our DIY Kitchen Remodel
I’m so excited to be able to not only finally share our kitchen remodel with you, but to also just be D-O-N-E!! I I think that the progression from concept to completion went very smoothly with only a few tweaks (tile and range hood) in the overall original design. I’m also very sure that I will want my cabinets in any future home setup like this, with open cabinetry below closed cabinetry, it just works so well for all of us and no extra dusting required!
So here is where we started (that’s the home inspector at the island), my hubby took photos of the house as he was inspecting it. What we have is a nice, open, good sized kitchen just not exactly what we wanted.
The first stage for us was replacing the can lights for pendant lights, new fridge, microwave, sink, faucet, dishwasher and updating and painting the island.
Stage two was the easiest and quickest, installing marble subway tile backsplash…
It remained like this for just over 2 years, but I always knew that painting the cabinets was next…
The third stage was to update and paint the butlers pantry, it was also my “test” for the kitchen cabinet paint color (Benjamin Moore White Dove).
Then FINALLY the last stage, raising the original cabinets to the ceiling, making new open cabinets to install below, adding decorative molding, installing more tile above stove and sink window, installing new range hood and adding a decorative cabinet above stove and fridge and painting all of the cabinets and installing new hardware… WHEW that was a mouthful and I’m pretty sure a run-on sentence!!
I hand painted (with a combination of foam roller and soft bristle brush) with Benjamin Moore’s Advance paint line all of the cabinet boxes and trim, but I spray painted the doors in the garage. I always follow the same routine, clean the cabinets with Formula 409, fill imperfections, lightly sand, wipe down with tack cloth, spray prime, sand, clean, spray paint color and repeat as many times as necessary. I sprayed 4 coats on each door side, letting them sit for 24 in between each coat and a week before I flipped them from the back to the front (always paint the back first). The final finish looks great!
The molding I added is the same we added to the island and helps disguise where the 2 cabinets are connected.
So much easier to access glassware and everyday dishes now!
We love our new hood, it works so much better than the microwave vent and because it is mounted much higher than the microwave was it helps open that space up.
My one small decorated area…
The wall color in the kitchen is Benjamin Moore Chelsea Grey.
Some before and after comparisons for you…
Well that’s it! No more phases left to do, whew!!!
Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed this walk-thru of our kitchen renovation!
Other kitchen renovation posts:
My Newly Raised and Organized Kitchen Cabinets
So you may know we went through a kitchen cabinet overhaul where we raised the original cabinets to the ceiling and added an additional open cabinet to the bottom of the original cabinets…
This setup works extremely well for the way we want our kitchen to function! The everyday dishes and glasses are in the open shelving area where they are quickly and easily put away and retrieved. The original raised cabinets are now setup for basically anything that doesn’t fall into the everyday category. However my 5’5” frame can only reach the first shelf in the old cabinets now so this is the main issue that was taken into consideration when I was re-organizing the shelves.
This most likely might sound a tad anal retentive, but I started with a list (because who doesn’t love a good list) of the different categories of items I had to organize, for example…
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wine glasses (why do I have so many… OMG I am such a lush
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Casserole dishes
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Storage containers
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Everyday dishes
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“Fancy” china
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“Fancy” water glasses
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Misc. drinking cups
Anyway, you get the point… I think I had about 15 line items that I needed to deal with and rather than start to randomly put the items away and then decide I needed to move them or that I forgot something I created a very crude cabinet diagram and worked on placement of the items by numbering each line item and then placing that number on the cabinet they were to go in. It took a little more upfront time, but when I went to put everything away the job went very smoothly.
Just some of our many, many wineglasses… also all of our china fit on the top 2 corner cabinet shelves, you know the shelves you always loose stuff in anyway!!!
I mean the cabinets almost look bare, maybe I need more ice cream bowls…
This entire area (top and bottom cabinets) is dedicated to drinks, coffee, soda stream, tea etc.
Our one display area in the kitchen, which I love and hopefully I won’t have to clean too often…
And look we even have the new range hood installed!
I can’t even tell you how much I love my new ceramic knife holder from Williams & Sonoma… it is super cool with its Kapoosh insert and I think it looks way better than the traditional wood knife block!
By the way remember the time I totally broke the glass stove top to pieces…
Well come to find out you can just replace the glass, which my hubby and I did as it is totally a DIY job. Yes, I would have LOVED to have purchased a new top, but finding one that fit the exact dimensions of the granite opening proved to be impossible very difficult. The Jenn-Air glass replacement top I bought online and it cost just a tad over $300, about 1/4 of what I would have had to spend to replace it.
I organized the cabinets based more on how often I would need to use the item more so then where I would use it. So for example all of my china and extra wine glasses went way up on the uppermost shelves. Where it would make sense for most people to have their casserole dishes near the oven (where ours were originally) I put ours in one of the base cabinets near the island because we use them quite frequently. I still have quite a few empty shelves, but everything is put away and I have only had to get the step stool out once in 3 weeks so I think the setup is working great so far!
As far as finishing the kitchen I just started spray painting the cabinet doors so once done the kitchen will be finished… whew hew!!! I took a few weeks off, some due to weather, but quite a bit due to procrastination on my part… but I’m getting it done now and if I never have to paint another set of kitchen cabinets I will consider myself a lucky girl!!
Thanks for stopping by!!!
