Kitchen: Before and After

Long overdue...and believe me this was no easy task...not the kitchen part so much, but figuring out how to format and layout these pictures.  Ugh.  blogger.  After doing all this, my son  says, "Why didn't you just....."
and then gave me computer jargon.  I'm a homeschool mom, not a tech-y.  So for those who haven't had a chance to come by and visit or see the pics, here 'tis.
  

The Main Work Area

Below (in the small pic)  is the original view of my stove and sink.    On the right is the completed kitchen.

The Missing Wall

The wall behind the fridge is what I
desperately wanted removed.  It created the
most unnecessarywaste of hallway space since Alaska's
bridge to nowhere.

My Fridge Area

We enlisted the help of a local carpenter to assist with some of the cabinet placement and hanging.  I asked him if he could use one of our existing cabinets, which used to be over the stove as a storage unit above the fridge.  The issue is that the fridge was larger than our old one, so this cabinet was going to look funky unless we did something creative with it.  We created a false wall and only used the front of the cabinet facing creating a HUGE cabinet for out of the way storage.  It now houses holiday items and tableware. And to think that the little cabinet that used to be above the fridge only held my cookie cutters. 

The island provides the most organized solution to my "redneck" tupperware ever.  No more tumbled plastic margarine tubs cascading out of the skinny cabinet.  These are now STACKED.  Neatly. 









 The Coffee Bar

 In order to sort of balance out the large fridge cabinet area, I created a coffee bar on the other side of the dining room doorway.  Those upper cabinets are original--I just plucked out the center panel and replaced it with striped glass panels. I love it!















Here's my hallway to nowhere....well, not really but to the den, which is now the "family room" since it's not hidden away anymore.   I would be holed
away in the kitchen cooking or cleaning while my family would escape and enjoy a football game or such.  No longer!  I am part of the fun now!  Even if I'm
still behind the sink.

If you look closely, you can see the original cabinets that my husband worked so hard at repainting.  This was no easy task. Every cabinet that has an arched panel is original.  The cabinet doors with rectangular panels were stock cabinets we purchased from Lowe's, and we had to sand and paint those to match.  Unbelievable amount of work, and so scary to begin when you are looking at a brand new, shiny cabinet.
That's what I get for watching HGTV one too many times.  It took us several weeks to paint the cabinets and cabinet doors.  Sand, paint, sand, paint, sand, paint...some as many as 5 times until we got them right.  And then I used a glaze on the detailing to create an antique look which really brought the whole kitchen together, with the mix of new and old cabinets.

I am incredibly blessed to have a family that helped me with this insane project.  Believe me when I say, I don't think we will ever want to go through a remodel like this again.  I believe our next house will stay as-is.

Kitchen Project: Getting There...

 I enjoyed seeing my teenage sons splayed all over the newly laid tiles, plumb tuckered.  One would have thought that they were the ones who laid them!  Nope, we had someone who did a fine job of laying them on the 45 degree angle do the dirty work.  We chose PermaStone over ceramic tiles primarily to avoid those hard cold floors....and my inevitable fumble fingers.  I am also not a fan of cleaning grout as my dear friends know who saw what the grout on my old countertops looked like.  Yuck!!!



A few of the painted cabinets have been installed,
along with something to house our fridge.  Up until
now, it still looked like we pushed it to the
other side of the kitchen and forgot it there.  At least
it now looks like we intend to keep it there.  Our genius
carpenter, Rich Vogt, fashioned a new cabinet housing
for the old front which is insanely HUGE and will be a
wonderful place to hold my rarely-used holiday ware and
tablecloths.  Shoot, the boys could practically hide in there during
one of their epic hide-and-seek games with their friends
and maybe give my laundry chute a break.

 We chose to go with laminate over the trendy granite.  Besides being thousands less, we have a
surface that I won't have to stress over.  Wipe and go...that's my motto.  Or forget to wipe and go....no worries.







We chose one in the Radiant line which was a little pricier but oh-so-pretty.  It was still less than a solid surface counter and more impervious to stains.

Obviously we are still FAR from done.  The cabinet doors are awaiting paint in the garage and the island and cabinets need their molding and finishing touches, but here's where we are.

Dare I mention why we don't have our sink/counter yet?  A mistake in measuring cost us another week before it comes in so we have been operating without a kitchen sink for 4 months.  I'm thankful to my mother who taught me to "make do" and deal with adversity when it comes to these sort of inconveniences.  We have risen to the challenge before and another couple of weeks won't kill us.

Final post should be "before and after" shots. 

Kitchen Project: Early Stages

 It took some hunting but I finally found a shot of some of the demolition.You can see a little of the lovely green formica that had been hidden by the white ceramic tiles on our counter.  That was a bit of a surprise when we first discovered that.  No wonder they were all cracking....although you have to admit that it was a good, cheap update to sell an outdated house. 

 

My middle son is examining another drain/vent pipe issue.   (Note that he is sporting the trendy Sonlight Window Cleaning shirt.....feel free to call for bright and shiny clean windows, gutter cleaning, pressure washing or screen repair!  www.sonlightwindowcleaning.com)

Fixing the drain/vent pipe, which meant relocating it, paid a truck payment or two for our handy plumber.  If my boys don't decide to become electricians, maybe I can talk at least one of them into a career in plumbing.

The pipe has been moved and the pony wall which will be behind the cabinets has been put into place.

The old linoleum is still on the floor which sports many holes from the cleats of Tim Masthay (and his brothers probably) when they lived here.  Tim has gone on to play football for the Green Bay Packers (as noted by the signs all over our fine town advertising their 2010 Super Bowl win!)  The old linoleum is now gone along with the visible evidence reminding us why we don't wear our cleats in the kitchen. The football spirit remained, and my sons are now playing homeschool football with a great team, following the spirit of the football Tims.  (Tim Masthay & former homeschooler, Tim Tebow)

My dear husband who got suckered into this project knew that I was in OVER my head with painting our cabinets so he constructed this genius paint booth in our garage.  It is vented and has effectively kept all the dust and bugs off our freshly painted cabinet bases and all those cabinet doors.  The challenge has been keeping up with 50+ items that all needed multiple coats of primer, several coats of paint, and polyurethane with sanding in between.  Can anyone say work overload?  No wonder painters charge so much to refinish cabinets.  Maybe one of my sons will take up painting.....


More to come. 

Kitchen Project: Feeding the family

 The Temporary Kitchen.

The lack of an actual winter (read: ice, snow and blustery days) prevented my husband from having any actual down-time from his seasonal business.  Sunshine-y warm days had customers calling us off the hook to have their windows cleaned. God was blessing us with extra business the one time in our life when we could have used the peace and quiet to get this kitchen renovation underway.  So, it became apparent that this was going to be one long, drawn-out project.  I had no choice but to find a way to organize a mini-kitchenette in our dining room that would work for the long haul.  The coffeemaker was a necessity so it had center billing.  The crock pot was a lifesaver the first month, while I still had creative juices flowing.  By the middle of month 2, it was cereal and Little Caesar's with an occasional burst of Rotisserie chicken or Bad Bob's BBQ.

I chose a minimal number of dishes and some basic bowls and
saucepans that could carry us for this kitchen reno season.

It seemed to work.  I kept my spices in a small plastic basin and my pantry items like vinegars, olive oil, peanut butter and pastas in a large rubbermaid tub.  These are still sitting in my dining room.

The scary part of living like this is I can see how people that live a hoarding lifestyle can get by with clutter and chaos.  YIKES!
It became "easy" to "put things away" by tossing them into these bins, basins and boxes.






  My youngest son is preparing a gourmet meal of bagel bites or some such scrumptious offering from the frozen food aisle at the grocery store.  Never in my married life have I had a freezer full of boxed frozen foods.  My boys were in junk-food heaven.




Corn dogs, hot dogs, frozen chimichangas, HOT POCKETS for crying out loud.  We used to joke about Hot Pockets and they were becoming a staple food item. 

More healthy food choices:  bacon cooked
on our George Foreman grill on the patio.
What a blessing it was to have such mild
weather that we did so much cooking
outside.








OK, so someone may be wondering how we were keeping all those dishes clean.  Well, there are sacrifices to be made.

 One of my dear friends helped me see the upside to all this sacrifice and gave me some more creative ideas.

"But just think of all the HOT WATER you're saving!"

"If you add soap to the toilet tank, you could also cleanse your butt so much better after pooping and flushing!"

"Will the rinse aid in the toilet tank leave my butt shiny and free of water spots???"
But lastly she wanted me to remind her "never to eat 'salad, washed and ready to eat' at your house!"


I'm thankful for friends that keep me laughing hard and loud.

We are also so thankful for germ-a-phobes like her son who asked how that could possibly be sanitary.  How else would so much hand sanitizer get sold?  I told her to let him know that we take every precaution by doing unnecessary things like flushing the toilet before draining the dishes on it and I have strongly resisted the urge to multi-task by not peeing and washing at the same time even though the sink is so close. The best part of my system is that while the pile of large dirty dishes is waiting on the floor to be be washed, Chloe, our Schnauzer cross has full access to do the pre-wash by licking them. Shoot, some barely need to be washed after that.

It occurred to me that with all our camping excursions and the level to which our sanitary good senses descend to (while you are going potty at the bathhouse, will you wash out this pan?) what's a few weeks living like medieval peasants?

As I thought about it, the flush and rinse sounds like a great idea for all those drinking glasses that the family insists on using. I should let them know that I will be using that method on every glass used. However, they are welcome to just hang onto ONE cup and wash it themselves. Let's see if we can save a few flushes.

Stay tuned for more kitchen project stuff.  

Kitchen Project: Work in progress

Behind the Stove

The wall in the picture to the right happened to be one of those
"little" issues that turned out to be a whole day and night ordeal.

A simple task to remove the vent opening behind the stove revealed
that the mortar from the exterior bricks prevented the wallboard from
going in flush.  Hubby and sons had to remove the wall, insulation, mortar, vent opening and start from almost scratch.

When the new 2x4 stud went in, the 220 volt outlet for the stove also had to be moved.  Little did we know that "just moving it over" could have cost us cabinet placement due to not measuring where the new tall pantry cabinet was going to be placed.

 My middle son is caulking before the insulation and rest of the wall goes up.



















Since the home was built in 1972, wood-look paneling was the wall of choice, and
we had a plethora of it.  What we thought was
drywall when we bought the house, turned out to
be paneling.  The crevices had been filled in with drywall mud.  All it took for us to discover this was to attempt to hang the first picture.  So, to keep the walls flush, we chose to use paneling behind the stove.  This would be covered by the cabinetry and backsplash.

 To quote my husband, "All that work to simply make a window into the family room?!?"

That wasn't the initial intention.  The original plan was to completely open it up but the discovery of drainpipes from our upstairs master bath in the wall created the necessity of building this wall.  It meets up with the header that we would have preferred to not have.....but again, a load-bearing wall needs that.  Sigh.  So much for wide-open.

The walls and ceiling are getting the drywall treatment of their lives.  My cousin is a drywall pro (Designer Drywall & Custom Finishes) so it's sort of like these old walls had a visit to the
spa.

Here's the much-desired effect:  to finally have visibility between the kitchen and family room.

The view will be much better from the family room into the kitchen.  The ASTRONOMICAL bill for all the necessary electric work cost us the new sectional sofa.



I strongly suggested that my sons look into becoming electricians.

Sigh.  Again.

More kitchen stuff coming.

The Kitchen Project: "Before" Pictures

 I have learned that there is no such thing as a "little kitchen re-do."  Granted, there were many folks that sort of snickered when we ventured into this.  I would say that we are doing a "small" renovation in our kitchen which should only take a couple of weeks.  I'm sure they are still laughing.


Here is my "before" picture showing the sink and stove walls--and the reason I felt that this was not as intimidating as other renovations we have seen--we were leaving the stove and sink in basically the same place.  How was I to know that moving my sink
over 12 inches would be an expensive endeavor?








The fridge.
This was the main reason we didn't do
this project earlier.  Where would I put the fridge when I removed that wall?
Answer:  where the aquarium now sat.
Problem?  Would it sit all by itself across the kitchen?



 And, what to do with the fish?  Answer:  Give them away.

 Here's the 14 foot hallway that was the least used space in the house--unless you are a homeschooler who needs a large wall to house those huge world and USA maps. 







I found myself willing to sacrifice
my eat-in kitchen for more work
space and island with indispensable
counter space.


The "after" pictures will be posted when there is an actual "after" to see.  In the meantime, the progress shots will forthcoming.