The big reveal: Our kitchen renovation

I’ve been taking a beating both from friends in real life and from blogging friends about how long it’s taken me to post the “after” photos from our big kitchen renovation. Ok, maybe not really a beating, but lots of begging and pleading and “we can’t wait to see what it looks like so post those pictures pronto” requests.

With the craziness of my work schedule lately (which thankfully is back to normal), our sudden lack of a computer at home, and a few other things, I’m sorry for the delay! But without further ado, here they are!

(If you want to read more about the day by day progress of the renovation, here are the links. Here’s what the kitchen looked like before. Read about packing up the kitchen, day one, day two, day three, day six, day seven, day eight, day nine, days 10/11, day 13, day 14, day 15, day 16, days 17-19, day 20, day 21, day 22, day 23, days 24-26, day 27, and day 28.)

Let’s recap how the kitchen used to look…

We had old cabinets with doors that didn’t stay closed, tiled countertops, old linoleum floors, and not much counterspace or storage.

This area was great when people came over because it gave us a couple fo seats in the kitchen, but it wasn’t great for much else. The window you see here looks into our laundry room, which must have been added on at some point.

These doors go out to the screen porch. One thing we didn’t like about the kitchen was that the only vent was in the floor right in the doorway. Whenever those doors were open, out went the air conditioning! Another thing we wanted to change was the counter on the left. The way it cuts in to fit with the too-wide trim around the door made that countertop virtually not usable. The window you see on the left looks at a brick wall, which is part of our master bedroom that was added on.

And here’s our old refrigerator and stove/oven. The stove/oven was fairly new, but we just didn’t like the set-up with how the countertop jutted out towards it. If anyone was standing at the stove or the counter, it was hard to walk through that space.

After a month of eating grilled hot dogs and veggies, take-out, and whatever easy no-prep, no-clean-up foods we could come up with, we’re so excited to have a brand-new kitchen! We took some inspiration from Young House Love, but of course, we put our own twist on the details, design, and layout. As we’ve been redecorating our entire house, we’ve used a coastal theme without making the house look like a beach house out of place. I think we pulled off that look in the kitchen with the white cabinets, pale aqua paint (it’s Sherwin-Williams Tidewater), and white/gray granite.

We filled in the window that looked out at the brick wall of our master bedroom and expanded the countertops and cabinets in this space. We added a cooktop here with a microwave above the cooktop to vent. This space adds so much more storage space for us!

You’ll notice how the countertop is more of an angle here than the sharp turn it used to have. This allows for better traffic-flow in the space, and it really gives us a good working space to cook.

We replaced the linoleum with hardwood floors to match the rest of the house, and we got all new stainless steel appliances.

The double ovens might be my favorite thing about our new kitchen. I love to cook (check out all of our recipes), and I always need an extra oven, especially when we’re entertaining. And with the added storage around the ovens, this layout is a much better use of the space.

Remember that black pub table? Our new bar area replaced that! We filled in the window that looked into the laundry room and added more cabinets, a custom-built wine rack, and beer on tap! The kegerator fits under the counter, and a hole in the granite allows the tubing to go up into the stainless steel beer tower. We upgraded and got the dual beer tower, so we can enjoy both Sam Adams Seasonal (currently, it’s Oktoberfest) and Blue Moon.

We also replaced the doors to the screen porch and made them slightly smaller. The trim is much smaller too to allow for the expanded cabinets. We had to have the trim custom-made to match the old trim in the kitchen, but it was definitely worth the little bit of extra cash. (Say hi to Rose!) We also had crown molding added to match the new crown molding in the den and dining room.

Our new refrigerator fits much better in this space and has a built-in look with the wood panel on the left side. We sprung for a slightly smaller counter-depth refrigerator so it wouldn’t look dominating and go into the doorway too much. We had the door to the laundry room (you can see the trim to the left) replaced with a slightly smaller one so everything would fit.

We moved the dishwasher to the other side of the sink since the counter now is more angled. A pull-out trashcan and recycling bin replaced where the dishwasher was located, and I love that the trash is now out of sight.

This is a clever storage system we wanted to add to the small space beside the ovens. It’s similar to the one Rachael Ray has on her television show “30-Minute Meals,” and it’s a great storage solution for our spices and canned goods. The cabinet above it is the same style.

We had this window replaced to be more energy-efficient and look new. We also had the pendant light installed above the sink to match the chandelier in the dining room. We love our new stainless steel sink and Delta Grail faucet.

I’ll be sharing more details over the next week or so, but what do you think? This renovation has been a long time coming, and it is definitely worth the year and a half of planning and work. We’re so excited about the way it turned out! Thanks for following along this journey with us!

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