Kitchen!

We recently embarked on a grand kitchen re-do. Now, it must be said that Kitchen 1.0, which was in place when we bought the house, was awful. The cabinets were stained with so much "honey oak" stain they were practically orange. The counters were yellow, and the floor was a piece of brown flowered carpet. So, right away, we put in Kitchen 2.0, which involved painting the cabinets (thanks, Mom!), replacing the counters and sink, and replacing the carpet with vinyl tiles. And that got us through for the past 3 years. It was good, but we are now working on Kitchen 3.0, which will involve some rearranging and structural changes to the house (eventually). So here we go!

Our kitchen is a skinny little galley, so there are only 2 "before" pictures. Here is the West Wall, which contained the sink and dishwasher:

Here is the East Wall, which held the fridge, stove, and the tiniest, most useless piece of counter, where I prepped all our meals!

Sam and I did all of this work ourselves. He knocked out the cabinets and unhooked the dishwasher and sink. I pulled up all the floor tiles (and the floor tiles I found underneath, so we were down to the original wood, which is sadly covered in 50-year-old black adhesive). We both assembled the new cabinets. He installed them. I painted. He cut and installed the counters. We laid the new floor ourselves. I stained the baseboards. He tried to re-plumb the sink (we may need to call a professional...). As you can see, it was a serious team effort, especially with 2 kids in our midst! Thanks go to Nana and Will and Adrienne for volunteering their babysitting services while we did the big parts of the project.


West Wall after: We moved the fridge, relocated the dishwasher.

East wall after. No more fridge blocking the view to the door, and look at that huge expanse of counter to work on!
Might not seem like great shakes to those of you with kitchens big enough for an island, but it is a great improvement for us!

You might say "Uh, Corrie, you don't have any upper cabinets..." I know. Here on the East Wall we will eventually have a half-wall, opening the kitchen up so we can see into the living room. But that project, Kitchen 3.1, is quite involved and labor-intensive. No point in hanging cabinets on a wall you are going to knock down, and we've found that we have more than enough storage, now that we have a better arrangement of cabinets and drawers.


Here's the budget breakdown:

Vinyl floor (stock, Menards): $90

Cabinets (assemble-yourself, Craigslist): $150

Cabinet hardware: $40

Counter (stock laminate, Menards): $110

Faucet: $35 (on clearance from $80)

Paint: free (leftover from dining room project)

Baseboards (unfinished pine) and can of stain: $15

Supplies (jigsaw blades, screws, etc.): $20

Total: $460 (!)

Add to that a future visit from the plumber...still a pretty cheap home improvement!