The Yellow Cave Facelift (aka Kitchen Update!)


So remember the yellow cave of a kitchen that we have from the 1960’s? If not, you can check out this post that shows it in all its…old age.

I do think it was the cream of the crop kitchen back in the day. This day though, it needs a little help. So we took a first (very exciting and thrilling awesome) step: new countertops! If you couldn’t have guessed from this polling post there were decisions to make and I needed input for such a big decision. It was a unanimous decision by my family, the readers, and by what Eric and I were thinking: Federal Cornerstone!

A plus side to getting a new countertop (like it needed one) is that we had decided long ago if we were going to update the countertops, we would replace the old, scratched, shallow sink and the ancient stove top. Then, as a consequence of replacing the countertops, and not a decision we made ahead of time, we had to pull out the back splash and will have to replace that. No tears lost on the yellow tile being gone!

So after we made all our decisions and placed our order, we had a parade of people coming through the house. The demo guys needed to come and check out what they would have to do (we would have demoed if we were doing the whole kitchen but were nervous about hurting the cabinets since we were just taking out the countertops) and the installation guys came to make a template. That all took about a week. Then the countertops had to be fabricated, which took about 2-3 weeks.

This Monday all the action started. Day one was ripping out the countertops and back splash. Unfortunately I was at work and missed all the fun and came home to this.

Talk about an open concept, right? It was very convenient just reaching through the top to access pots and pans, although there really was no need since no cooking was going on that night!

Come Tuesday it was the big day: installation day! I thought they were supposed to come at 8, which is when I usually leave for work, so I tried to dawdle as much as possible to get a sneak peek. No such luck. They ended up showing up around 10ish. Oh well, I did get awesome text updates throughout the day though. When 4:30 hit, I ran out of work, motored down the road, screeched into the driveway, and blew through the door yelling, “I’m so excited!” So worth it too.

They. are. perfect. I love them! They are a such a pretty speckled shade and fit perfectly into our kitchen. I just love the Formica too, an affordable solid surface. Let’s take a few more looks. Although it is a little distracting with the torn out back splash right now. One step at a time.

So I was wondering if this would be true, and I guess I found out that it is sort of true. I have often heard that if you update one thing in a room, it just makes everything else look a lot older. There is a perfect example here.

This is that random, yellow cabinet between the living and kitchen. I always detested the yellow on the cabinet and have been meaning to paint it (where does the time go?!) and now the new countertop color has moved it to the top of the priority list. The yellow looks terrible against the new grayish-brown countertops. Maybe that is this weekend’s project.

Now introducing the new sink and faucet. So in love this this deep sink and beautiful curving faucet with the removable sprayer head.

Now the new flat surface stove. Hello no more burning particles that hide under the burner!

You can also see the sneak peek of the different choices of back splash we are  going to get! There are a few choices of the tin tiles.

I will keep it a surprise which one we choose! Can’t wait to get that up, as the torn-up walls are realllllly distracting. Let’s do one more before and after.

 
So there it is folks, the first of the kitchen updates. Wondering what else we plan to do to spruce the space up? Here’s the list:

  • Paint yellow cabinet white
  • Paint pea green garbage compactor black
  • Back yellow walls tan
  • Put up new back splash
  • Put up undermount cabinet lighting
  • Change light fixtures above the kitchen and eat-in kitchen area
  • Paint all hardware and hinges (argg so not looking forward to this. So many handles and hinges!)

Eric and I had talked about painting the cabinets before but then said no, the wood was too nice to paint. Well, now we may be rethinking that…maybe. We are going to do all the updates first and then do that later on down the road. Talk about a big project! But it definitely would be a big change!