My Kitchen Renovation

I have been meaning to blog about my kitchen reno for forever! It has been finished for a couple of months now (well, mostly finished, do they ever really completely get finished? I have a few things on my list for the main contractor to come back and look at.)

This is what I started with, as a refresher: 

 lovely little drive thru window:

Then, I took down that wall that divides the dining room and kitchen. Now, it's essentially one large space. 

I wrote about it before, but I had to have a 16" header. Everything is painted white, so it's not too annoying, but I wish it could've been flush (way more $$$).

As you can see the kitchen floors were porcelain tile. It wasn't terrible, but I decide to remove them and put in hardwoods to match the rest of the house. The house has original hardwoods, and they had recently been redone. I'm happy to report the new kitchen hardwoods match seamlessly with the old (phew). 

Here is a progress photo from when the wall came down (DUST) and the header went up (DUST), but pre-kitchen remodel. 

This was right before the rest of the reno began. It was actually supposed to start in a couple of weeks from when I took this picture, but soon after I took it, my cabinet girl called and said, "If you can get your demo guys over there, I can get the cabinets in in three days!" So, acting as my own GC (I actually really like it because I can mostly control everything ;), I called my demo guys and asked if they could come SOON. He assured me they would be there that weekend. So one Sunday morning, bright n early, my entire kitchen was removed into a giant island of cabinetry and flooring into my backyard. 

They did it so fast, and this is what it looked like within a few hours:

crazy.

On a whim, I decided to paint interior of the back door pink. My main contractor said, "Pink? Really" And kind of rolled his eyes. I guess not every shares my sensibilities. :)

Like I mentioned in my last post, I had a great cabinet contractor and she really helped me a lot with the placement of things. I knew I wanted:

1) hidden trashcans/recycling

2) a peninsula 

3) (most importantly) STORAGE

We created a plan to have a wall of relatively shallow (17") cabinets across from the sink for LOTS of storage. Believe it or not, I can store everything in this kitchen that used to be stored in my old house's kitchen. That house was 1900sf and this one is ~1100sf! Booyah.

Anyway, next came floors, then cabinets. Not walking on the floors for a few days and dealing with the fumes wasn't easy.

Pretty new floors, YESSSSSS

Apparently I don't have any photos of just the floors, but you get the drift. 

Finally it was time for the cabinets to go in. They came back and guess what? They mismeasured for the pantry area across from all of this, so that had to be reordered and was installed a couple weeks later. I was so excited and happy about this, that I really didn't even care. 

Finally, they came back to finish the install and also to add hardware (which is Martha Stewart for Home Depot). 

I love the fridge being boxed in. I kept all of the electrical and plumbing in the same spots because I liked where everything was and also I didn't want to spend the extra $ on that. My fridge and stove are not fancy, but they work fine. (Do wish the stove was gas, though! In a house that has gas, why is it not?! Argh)

I asked the contractor to leave the spots that needed patching for me. That, I can do! Also, I had him move/add can lights. They had added can lights before I bought the house, but they were in the wrong places for my new cabinetry, and I also wanted one over the sink. Holes holes holes to patch. 

I also painted this wall completely white, and had my contractor install a vent that actually vents outside, instead of recirculating smells/food back into the air like my old hood did. (dumb)

Post-patching and painting :) 

 I forgot to mention before that I added a dishwasher to the kitchen when I first moved in. The house didn't have one and I'm a snob and REALLY enjoy a dishwasher. So sue me.

Here is an almost-done pic with the countertops installed! This is when I really started getting excited. The new peninsula is a huge game-changer and really gives so much space, and I love being able to sit there and chat and have dinner. 

I looked for pendants for over the peninsula everrrrrywhere (well, every where that had relatively fast lead times). I couldn't find anything I wanted. Let's also not forget this was towards the end of reno and I was tired of spending money. 

I bought these white pendants from IKEA and carefully spray painted them hunter green (love the Montana spray paint line which you can buy at art supply stores).  I taped off the little lip on the top and bottom of the fixture to keep it white, because I felt like if it had originally been painted green, that's how it would've looked. 

I also spray painted the tops of the fixtures gold (previously also white). I loved how they turned out. My contractor was also a little judgey about my spray painting my fixtures, but whatev. We clearly don't have the same taste ;) He looked at me like I was a crazy person when he walked in one morning to see this sitting out for him.

Soooo, drumroll.... end result! And some of these pics have been edited (admittedly, for my instagram account {@kfddesigns}, not for here) and some haven't at all. I need some pro shots of the space, but this will have to do for now! I need to bring out the ol' Canon again, but my trusty iPhone seems to do most of the work these days. 

 I had the back walls tiled in white subway tile ... hard to see in these photos, but I love it. Timeless.

pink door! Wall of storage, I love you. Also - that microwave is the fanciest appliance in the house. In order to do the wall of cabinetry like this, and to also get the microwave off the counters (for more counter space) we had to put it in the wall of cabinetry, and since they are pre fab cabinets, we had to find a microwave that was shallow enough for our little situation. This over $600 microwave did the trick. Insert me rolling my eyes. But hey, it's really quiet. ha.

View from dining room: 

 I got the black stools on either Overstock or Amazon. I ordered the wrong height the first go-round, so had to send them back. Rookie mistake. 

andddd my cute little mint stool I got at Homegoods. I was already thinking I needed a cute stool for this kitchen, and when I saw this at HG one day, I snapped it up in a heart beat. :)

All in all, it happened at lightning speed. I thank my previous design contractor connections and being a good harasser of vendors for that ;)

Here is the other side of the long wall of cabinetry. to the right of the pink door. I added a cute bulletin board that I got months ago, as well as some gold hooks for keys/bags/etc. I also got that cute  "home" sign at White's Mercantile in Nashville.

Thanks for checking it out, y'all. I'm loving it!

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