Kitchen remodel…

I posted pictures on Instagram during my kitchen remodel and people kept asking to see before and after comparisons so I’d thought I would do a post about it.

So, if you were just humoring me and didn’t really want to see more – too bad BAHAHAHA! You’re getting it anyway.

And…I haven’t been in the mood to review anything so there’s that. *bad blogger*

Anyway…

We had been wanting to do something about our pantry for over 15 years – since we bought the house. It was an awkward drywall closet with wire shelves that angled so we had weird, unusable corners and very little storage space. That area is also in a corner next to a bay window with a drop ceiling so it’s was hard to work around.

Before:



We couldn’t afford a full kitchen remodel and wasn’t sure what options we had that would work for us – yet match our existing cabinetry. We went to Home Depot for a free design consultation and man was it helpful! I didn’t think we would be able to work with all the angles but the girl there had a plan ready in under 5 minutes that gave us loads of storage space and new counter space as well.

After getting the estimate for the cabinets and labor we decided to do the install ourselves – tear down the old pantry, move an electrical outlet and install the new pantry – saving close to $4000.

Deconstruction:



Ready for installation of new cabinets:



After:



Once everything was torn up we needed new floors – we had laminate and under that - old linoleum – man was that was a pain in the ass to remove!!! Dusty and smelly!



New floor – darker Hickory Oak laminate that now matches our dining/living room (as you can see, the dogs love it):



New granite counters to replace the old laminate counter tops:

Left: old Right: new




New sink, bench by the window for extra storage, and for Figgy to bird watch, and a few decorative touches and tada! DONE






















We hit a few bumps along the way. The laminate flooring was easy to remove but the linoleum took days, we had towering piles of flooring boxes in my living room for almost a month, and one side of our counter top had the finished edge done on the wrong side. Something they realized AFTER they removed the old one and sink so we had a makeshift counter for a week while they fixed it.

Figment had a complete meltdown with all the noise and smells. He was throwing up/stopped eating. He's a very dramatic kitty.

But it all worked out in the end and I'm really happy with it. Eventually, I would like a tile back splash but I need to live with it for a little while to see what I want. But that was enough for me for now! I need a loooong break from remodeling as I'm sure anyone else who has done this will agree.