Our first house was built in 1956. When Parker moved in, you could tell. It was a very well kept house and was clean and structurally sound, but it definitely needed some updating! Parker had big plans for a kitchen renovation. As I am known to do, I tried to convince him that we should just do a cosmetic upgrade because the project he was planning sounded stressful and hard to live through. He finally convinced me to go for the full renovation about a year and a half after we got married.
This project was started in August of 2009 and finished in February of 2010. It was a long project, but that’s what you get when you do almost everything by yourself and you also work a full time job! It was definitely tough to live through the renovation at times, but we made it; and the results were worth it! I am so proud of Parker’s work on this. He did all of the work himself besides the electrical and some of the plumbing. I will let the pictures do most of the talking. Enjoy!
OUR KITCHEN BEFORE:
The kitchen is behind the wall. Yes, unfortunately we have to claim that wall color. We pretty much didn’t like it right away, but never repainted it until the renovation. (There’s a card table set up in the bottom of the picture for a New Year’s Eve party)A peek at what’s behind that cut-out
A closer look
Looking back out of the cut-out
The floor
The counter tops
Lots of wear and tear
Ummm….no words. This beauty didn’t make it to the new house with us. There is a certain furry member of our family who misses this terribly (not Parker).
The other pictures are after everything is out of the kitchen before reno. This is what it looked like on the daily. Yikes.
I think I’m making dinner here. See the oven being used as prep space. Plus the microwave situation. Again, yikes. (Upon further investigation, I am not sure what is happening here, but we are going to go with “making dinner.”)
We stored wedding gifts here since there wasn’t enough cabinet space.
PROGRESS
There’s no going back now 🙂
Temporary walls up.
Old window boarded up. New window installed. The window had to be moved so the fridge could go in that corner.
And the other window is now a french door. Big improvement!! I wish I would have blogged this as it was happening. We definitely went to bed one night with a hole where the door was suppose to go. I think we put up some visqueen? There were tons of mosquitoes in the house, and it was so hot! It was like camping in our own home.
Inserting the beam with the help of some friends. No, Parker didn’t clone himself. He just has a friend with the same head (and height and nickel allergy…yep, weird).
We pretty much lived in the basement. Rocky lived in his trusty chair.
Or tried to help #istheresomethingonmyface? #hatewhenthathappens #renolife
Lighting in. We hired a professional for the electrical. You can also see the old door into the kitchen has been closed up so that the fridge and cabinets can go there.
We also hired a “professional” plumber. He left this in a pipe. We found it when our basement started flooding.
Cabinets ready for assembly after our Ikea trip. You will begin to learn our love for Ikea!
Cabinet installation
The other side
Moulding on top of cabinets
Tiling. Lesson learned: don’t start tiling after dinner. You will be tiling until breakfast.
Tile done! LOVE it!
YOU LOOK 50 YEARS YOUNGER!
It was quite the process, but what an improvement! I absolutely loved that kitchen and actually wish it could have traveled with us to the new house. We have nothing but great things to say about Ikea cabinets!
While the kitchen was still the same square footage as pre-renovation, it absolutely did not feel like it. It didn’t feel small at all anymore. It was great that it was open, the layout was funtional, there was more usable counter space, enough storage for all of our kitchen stuff, and it was clean and beautiful. I don’t think it could have turned out any better than it did. We also updated the dining room and living room with new paint, lighting, curtains, couch, and rugs. I can’t wait until our new house feels put together like this space did!
We’d love to hear your comments or answer questions!
How could you forget?! If I could go back in time, we would have not let him sit on that chair. Actually, Parker’s parents were the ones that let him sit on it at their house. He kind of wore it down a bit, so they let us have it (when it was still in pretty good condition). I should have been smart and gotten him a dog bed so that we could use the chair. I’d love a leather chair!!
You can only see my arm in the lifting the beam picture. (If I was more in frame I would have brought the hair ratio up 100%.) I can assure you I was holding most of the weight at this point and all of the weight once it was lifted higher than 5 ft.
Oh the memories! I forgot all about Rocky’s nasty chair!!
How could you forget?! If I could go back in time, we would have not let him sit on that chair. Actually, Parker’s parents were the ones that let him sit on it at their house. He kind of wore it down a bit, so they let us have it (when it was still in pretty good condition). I should have been smart and gotten him a dog bed so that we could use the chair. I’d love a leather chair!!
Love the blog, by the way. And that was such a nice job on that kitchen, I need Arker to get over here to my house to get some work done!!
You can only see my arm in the lifting the beam picture. (If I was more in frame I would have brought the hair ratio up 100%.) I can assure you I was holding most of the weight at this point and all of the weight once it was lifted higher than 5 ft.
Hahaha! Yes, Parker does have a few friends who are tall and still have hair. Thanks for the help, Joe!!