I almost called this a "Reveal" but we're waiting to get some cabinet doors made to fit over where the old wall oven used to go and there a couple of other tweaks that we want to happen so revealing our finished kitchen I am not, but I am here to show you how far we've come in five years.
Spoiler alert: Things have CHANGED. Big time.
This was move-in day:
And this was last week:
Five years of lots and lots and lots of DIY.
We took that right wall out and added a support beam to open things up to the living room - a controversial idea these days (open concept or closed concept?) but we'd do it again in a heartbeat.
We debated taking out the tall pantry cabinet, making an island verses a peninsula, but in the end didn't want to lose the storage real estate. Plus, the range would have been off center and I think that would have bothered me. Speaking of the range though, it takes over the function of the old wall oven + countertop stove. Where the old wall oven was, we'll get some matching cabinet doors made (a harder prospect than you would think we've come to find out) and obviously had to remove some lower cabinets to fit in the range. While the ceiling and wall were open, we also paid to have a gas line put in so we could go the gas range route. (Side note: Your local gas company will usually install a gas line for much less than a plumber. Our quote was $199 from the gas company verses $600 from a plumber.)
One of our first inklings when we first set eyes on this house was to take out this wall. So, when we bought the house and, even though we decided to live in it as-is before we made any big decisions, I had the foresight to just snap a quick pic looking at the wall before it came down.
It's a fun before and after.
is now just a space which usually still has shoes littered around it although these days they are a little bigger. You'll have to forgive me for cleaning up before I took pictures...or taking pictures because it happened to be clean for .398 seconds. ;)
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Can you spot our trash can? I feel that stationary cans are a big eye sore in a kitchen so I'd be overjoyed if your answer is "no". Some of you might've guessed where it might be as a drawer pull seems to be out of place...and now that I've typed that, you might just now see it. We debated knocking off that end cabinet, so there'd be two doors on the end instead of three, to make the opening into the living room bigger but then came up with the idea to transform it into a pull-out trash instead. No regrets thus far.
All of those upper cabinets are currently being used in other areas in our house. They're solid wood and constructed so well which is $$$ these days so it's nice to be able to still use them.
It's killing me that I didn't close the coffee maker before I took pictures but I guess we'll just call that a snap of real life since we typically leave it open all day to air out.
PROJECT LINKS
All of those upper cabinets are currently being used in other areas in our house. They're solid wood and constructed so well which is $$$ these days so it's nice to be able to still use them.
One big thing I'm a huge advocate of if you want to update an outdated kitchen is to remove any curvy headers that might be hanging around, like the one that was over our sink. We've had one in every kitchen we've owned and, with the exception of our first house in which I'll excuse us by saying we didn't know any better, they've been removed. Bam. Instant upgrade.
One thing I wish we could have done that you'll notice in the photo above was build in our refrigerator. We planned for it but in the end, it would have taken too much finagling. The cabinets above were custom built for the space so they're literally built as one piece. Separating them and pulling the ones above the fridge forward would have been a possible nightmare. Also, refrigerators are made a lot bigger these days than they were in the 80's so, even though we bought counter-depth and as narrow as we could go side-to-side, it's still too wide to add any sort of wood sheet down either side to get that built-in look.
UP AND COMING
There are a few things we'd still like to do before we throw in the towel like put up a real backsplash. The wallpaper was a fun way to try out the marble backsplash trend and whether we wanted that permanently. Currently, Anthony is still on board with it and I am not so stay tuned to see who "wins". On a less permanent level, I whipped up that little shade on the window one day on a whim but have a hankering to make something else a little more neutral that will match what goes up on the windows in the breakfast nook directly to the left. And then of course I mentioned that we still need to get doors made to match the existing ones that will fit over the space where the old wall oven was that will hide our microwave. We had a contractor hired to do it, but after four months of waiting and them telling us it was on their to-do list, we pulled out and need to find someone else willing to do a small job like that. Yes, we have thought about buying the router and tools necessary to make them ourselves but it would cost almost as much as just getting a couple made.
REGRETS
I hate that I'm even typing "regrets" considering I feel like we just made these decisions and finished but we do have a couple of things we'd do differently if we could go back. One, the model of the dishwasher. This is something we didn't even think about when searching for a dishwasher but the handle on the model that we ended up buying sticks out far enough that it blocks us from opening the adjacent cabinet drawer all the way. We should have bought a model without a handle. Note made for when this thing dies which hopefully won't happen for many, many years. Two, the gray cabinet paint on the peninsula. There are two regrets about this - the type of paint and the color. The white paint we used was a paint made specifically for cabinets and furniture. I wasn't enthused with the coverage at the time I painted it which was why I went with a basic (but still more expensive) regular latex for the gray cabinets. Years into having painted cabinets, both of the paints have held up similarly - dings here and there from use - but the white paint chips whereas the gray peels. It's easier to paint over chipping paint than peeling paint because you can fill in chips and dings and paint right over but with peeling paint, you have to sand until there's no more peeling, then paint. That's more complicated than it sounds. The cabinet paint dries harder than the latex, which dries but is still pliable - not what you want when talking cabinets. The cabinet paint is more expensive, but in this case expensive is better. The color - I wish I had chosen a gray with more brown tones. I wanted a tone-on-tone between the cabinet color and the countertop color but "Peppercorn" by Sherwin-Williams, the paint that I chose, kept popping up as a popular choice and it didn't look bad on the swatch next to the countertop. Aaand, the name got me. Peppercorn just fits with kitchen, right? But once on, it had more of a navy blue hue than I wanted and wasn't what I was going for. I'm not begging for another big cabinet painting project, but someday I'll have a few extra days time and these cabinets will get repainted with a new color and with an actual cabinet paint. And who knows, by then we might be sick of gray and head towards the mushroom brownish color I've also toyed with in my head. Have I said enough that we are never actually finished with things in this house? ;)
Finally, WHAT IT COST US
taking the wall out - $1200
appliances - $3500
range hood - $309 (including a $30 one-year warranty since we purchased from eBay)
paint - $120
cabinet hardware - $45 for pulls + $50 for knobs
wallpaper backsplash - $33
wallpaper inside cabinets - $30
flooring - $300 (we replaced the flooring in the whole main living area of our house but I only included the cost of the kitchen area)
countertops - $1100
sink - $55
faucet - $92
pull-out trash - $106
lighting - $100
Total spent - $7040
Reusing the cabinets we had (the ceiling height uppers were one thing that sold us on this house) since they were in such great shape and so well made obviously saved us a boatload of cash alongside using lots of our own elbow grease to make this space look the way we wanted it. We also lucked out by finding things like the sink, faucet, and light fixture for much less than retail on Amazon warehouse (now known as Amazon resale) and a local discount store. Concrete countertops, despite being a huge amount of work, are significantly less expensive (read: thousands of dollars) than most other countertop options and check the unique box. Any worries about finding a $750 range hood for $300 on eBay can be quelled by buying a cheap warranty. The thing hasn't given us a single problem in the four years we've had it. Scratch-and-dent appliances can be a real treasure. The range we bought was in our budget only because it had a small dent on the side...enclosed inside the cabinet that hugs it and which you'd never know was there. We got it, dent and all, for $800 less!!! Also, zero problems with it in its five years of age.
SOURCES
(Some of these links are affiliate links - we'll make a small percentage if you click through and make a purchase. Most of them are to exact items we purchased but some are to similar items in case exact items are sold out/currently unavailable or purchased secondhand.)
Whirlpool appliances - newer models exist of the fridge and dishwasher but I'll link the range because it's still available and our favorite of the bunch (I can preheat the oven while I'm in the freezer aisle deciding which pizza to buy for a last-minute dinner option!)
ZLine range hood - purchased from this seller on eBay
rug - I love these Loloi rugs for kitchens and bathrooms because they're easy to spot clean or heavy duty clean outside with a hose making them "washable" but they're not a flimsy as "washable" rugs.
flooring - discontinued Shaw vinyl plank but purchased from Home Outlet - it was the second time we've purchased flooring from this store at a deep discount
backsplash wallpaper - still looks like it did the day it was stuck up despite being wiped clean dozens of times and hit with anything a kitchen throws at it
concrete countertops - kit purchased from Z Counterform, concrete and pigment purchased from Lowe's, concrete mixer rented from Home Depot
sink
charcuterie and bread boards - made with the greatest attention to detail and craftmanship by our brother - check out his shop by clicking the link
peninsula counter stools - a Facebook marketplace find // similar
PROJECT LINKS
Our original plans - read to see if we stuck to them and if we stayed on budget!
Why we painted our cabinet hinges to match the cabinet colorOur other kitchen reveals: our rental kitchen & our second house's kitchen
Hooray for an updated kitchen, even if it did take five years. Hooray again for an updated bathroom, which is currently (still) in progress. We'll keep in touch about that. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week!
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