Before & After: Kitchen

I’m so excited to finally be able to write this post and share our kitchen reveal! This was a huge project, with several hiccups, but it is finally done and we couldn’t love it more.

We budgeted 5 weeks and $7,000 for the total renovation, starting in March. We quickly realized the timeline was based on experiencing zero backorders, which we ran into immediately. We left for Europe in the beginning of April with a half installed kitchen and tried to coordinate the completion from wifi hotspots and scheduling around our Airbnb guests. Our initial $7,000 budget was based on generous discounts and labor through our family and friends. Thankfully, we stayed closer to our financial budget than our timeline, and were able to complete our beautiful kitchen for $8,000!

Kitchen BEFORE:
These photos are from the listing when I purchased the house last summer. If this kitchen looks familiar, it is because it looks like every kitchen you ever partied in when you were in college.

The home is old-built in 1900, so we had some challenges to address from the start.

FLOOR: As the house has settled over the last century, the flooring in the kitchen has sloped. If you dropped a grape near the back door, it would roll all the way toward the dining room. The gap between the wood dining room floor and the kitchen floor was nearly a full inch.

COUNTER SPACE: Looking at these photos, you might recognize a lack of counter space, with just a small section on either side of the stove and a little bit on the right of the sink.

DEMO DAY:
We made quick work of demolition. We had a local charity pick up the appliances and sold the cabinets on craigslist. The bubbling laminate floor tore out easily in big pieces.

We were able to level the floor by laying self leveling concrete. From there, the tongue and groove flooring fit snugly into each other and we could start work on the rest. We moved the plumbing over to the left as we took out the floor length window and replaced with a window above the sink.

Three months and several cabinet backorders later, our kitchen is completely done! (Well, I am still looking for the perfect cabinet and drawer pulls.)

AFTER:

Product Details:
Appliances: Lowe’s Whirlpool package
Wall Color: Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter, mixed by Sherwin Williams
Cabinets: Aview Shaker White
Flooring: US Floors Cortec Weathered Concrete Vinyl (tongue & groove)
Backsplash: Colour & Dimensions 3×6 Brite White Subway Tile with Pewter Grout
Countertop: Quality Formica Calcatta Marble (laminate)
Lighting Fixture: Wayfair
Farmhouse Sink: Wayfair
Faucet: Wayfair