Kitchen Reveal

Looking back at my chronicling of our Kitchen Renovations, it seems we started working on the kitchen March of 2013 when we did a little demo work! Oh my! We officially sold our house last week, so it is about time I present the kitchen reveal! But first, some history. When we first moved into our house, our kitchen had white Formica counter tops, oak colored cabinets, wood laminate floors and grey walls. One of the first things we did was paint the walls Spring Green. It was refreshing! As I mentioned, we began our kitchen renovations in May of 2013. In Kitchen Renovations, Part I, I described the demolition of the bar above the kitchen sink. That remained in a state of demolition for many months until we were able to tackle the counter tops. In August 2013, we finally got our act together to really start working on the kitchen, just in time for both Nicholas and I to start new jobs. In Kitchen Renovations, Part II, we painted our upper cabinets and raised them up on the wall. I also removed the flooring in the kitchen that had been damaged by the leaking dishwasher. We lived with the concrete floor until December 2014! By November 2013, we installed a new dishwasher and finished painting the upper cabinet doors! Paint cabinets takes forever! That is all detailed in Kitchen Renovations, Part III. December 2013, we started working on redoing the kitchen counter tops. Another thing that took forever! We had originally planned to do the counter tops in solid wood butcher block from IKEA, but they were out of stock for many months when we went to buy it, and pregnant Dana was not interested in waiting until right when we were about to have a baby to finish the counters. We came up with an alternative plan and found large black granite tiles for a reasonable cost. Tiling the counters was about 3 times the work of doing a solid counter top, but in the end, was definitely the right choice! In Kitchen Renovations, Part IV, we removed the old counter tops and put down plywood. We lived with the plywood through Christmas. We extended the counter, and Nicholas built a beautiful brace out of (free) pallet wood that he planed and refinished. It was a beautiful custom touch to the kitchen! The kitchen and dining room also went from a Spring Green color to a beautiful blue color. Things started to move along pretty quickly in January 2014 as we rushed to finish up all the heavy construction before Big Bro's 3rd birthday party at the beginning of February. In Kitchen Renovations, Part V, we finished the main counter tops by laying mortar board, tiling, grouting the tile and adding a stainless steel strip around the edge of the counter top. Also, the new farmhouse sink was added! My favorite part of the kitchen! Kitchen Renovations, Part VI was my last update on the kitchen in March of 2014. We finished the countertops by the refridgerator, mortared and grouted the backsplash and added open shelving under the upper cabinets. That was pretty much the extent of our kitchen redo. Then we had a baby.
Fast forward to December 2014 when we finished our kitchen so we could sell the house. Here is a before picture:

And the big reveal--

We did a lot of work in the month of December!

1. Mortared, tiled, grouted and finished counters by the stove.

2. Backsplash trim--Design, cut, sand, affix, prime and paint.

3. Paint bead board.

4. Trim around bead board.

5. Affix wall next to dishwasher and apply trim.

6. Lay flooring!!!

7. Paint lower cabinets, doors and drawers (2 coats of primer, 1 coat of finish)

8. Paint Kitchen and Dining Room grey that the Stager picked to match the the backspalsh.

9. Lay trim and paint.

10. Paint garage door.

11. Trim and caulk behind the sink.