The Finale: Big Kitchen Before and After

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Don’t you hear the heavy pounding of our house’s heart? Because it is a strong and healthy heartbeat we have going on. What do I mean? I mean the heart of our home, the kitchen, is alive, strong, and oh-so-pretty! Yup, we are finally done with our list o’ projects to update our kitchen. Well, call it Phase 1 with a faraway and possible but maybe not Phase 2.  Wondering what all ensued in Phase 1? Let’s take a look.

• Replace yellow linoleum countertops
• Paint yellow cabinet white
• Paint pea green garbage compactor black
• Paint yellow walls tan
• Put up new back splash
• Put up under mount cabinet lighting (shown in the backsplash post)
• Change light fixtures above the kitchen and eat-in kitchen area
• Paint all hardware and hinges

 Let’s start at the very beginning; it’s a very good place to start. It begins with yellow, yellow, yellow everywhere! It was a yellow wonder of a kitchen, complete with yellow countertops, yellow tile backsplash, yellow walls, yellow florescent lights, and yellow hued cabinets.
 
After ticking off Phase 1 list and identifying Phase 2 list as painting the cabinets down the road or never (with at least a 6 month window before making any decisions), we have now landed here my friends. Behold, the power of before and after pictures. They make me drool a little bit; my apologies in advance.

Ahh, it feels so good to look at those lovely pictures. You know what feels better? Knowing that we won’t be living in a small construction zone anymore. Gone are the days of no countertops for a few days, a week of no cabinet pulls, a weekend of a cabinet doorless kitchen, and everything else that comes with updating a very prominent place in the house. It is so worth it though.

Now, we didn’t go for a complete kitchen reno, but instead went with a budget conscious kitchen spiff-up that included careful material consideration, diy-ing, and knowing when to call in the pros. It was definitely a good pace, a comfortable project list to tackle, and a good compromise of diy and  pro-paying. But that was just our style. What about you? Any big projects have you accomplished? How do you handle these projects?