I can’t believe how different and how much I love my new kitchen. We moved in the week before Christmas, then on Jan 6th my contractor called and said he had some time open and did I want to start my remodel. Of course I said YES. Well, here we are a month later and IT IS DONE.
Now let’s back up and take a look at what this kitchen looked like when we bought the house. Definitely “Builder Basic” with straight off the shelf oak cabinets, laminate counters, 12 yr. old basic appliances that barely worked and badly worn linoleum floors.
No frills – “Builder Basic”. That is one of the things I liked most about the house, I could do anything I wanted to it and I didn’t have to work around upgrades that I didn’t like. This kitchen was really shy on cabinet space, so I decided to rearrange a couple of cabinets and add a few more.
I wanted to enlarge the island area and to swap out a couple of small cabinets for larger ones, so off to the store to buy the new ones I needed. These are just stock off the shelf, and they match what is in the house perfectly. That saves a ton since I didn’t have to have custom cabinets made.
The painter had already picked up the new cabinets and given them a primer spary coat of paint. Then my contractor took the old ones out and put the new ones in. This is now the configuration I will have. I raised the small cabinet above the microwave, replaced the 12″ cabinets top and base to the left of it with 24″ cabinets to match the right side cabinets. Then I replaced the 30″ island with a 24″ base and and 18″drawer base.
Then crown molding was added to the top of the cabinets. That made a huge difference and such a simple addition. This helped them take on a custom look.
With everything taped off, they started the process of primer and paint, then finished everything off with a top coat of lacquer.
We also removed the track lighting, added pot lights and pendants.
The carpet in the adjoining family room and linoleum in the kitchen were removed and new wood floors were installed. This is a new product called NuCore and is 100% waterproof. Perfect for kitchen and bathroom areas.
For the counters we chose Alabaster White Granite. It has a lot of gray, white and a touch of a rusty brown. We were finally ready for the counters to go in and my new sink and faucet. We added corbels so we could enlarge the overhang on the peninsula also.
Now all of my new appliances could be installed and we were done.
What a difference and I have so much more usable cabinet space.
Replacing the small 30″ cabinet with these two new pieces (a 24″ base cabinet and an 18″ drawer unit) gave me more storage and most of all some drawer space that I really needed. It also gave me a larger work surface. We extended the granite 4 inches on the back side and – —
added the molding detail to cover up where the two cabinets were joined together. This detail gave the island more presence.
The show stopper has turned out to be the counters. I adore this granite. The gray, cream, white and brown tie the whole room together. We added corbels and extended the overhang to 12″. I also carried it all the way to the wall. This creates a huge area and work space. (The old formica counter only had a 6 ” overhang and stopped at the small wall)
The island has some great pattern too – – – –
and I think the swirls in some areas are gorgeous.
I love the crown molding, it totally transformed stock cabinets. They now have a custom look. (The cabinets on the left of the range were originally only 12″ wide top and bottom. I replaced those with 24″ cabinets to match the right side. This gave me more storage and created more visual continuity with the cabinets.)
This doesn’t look “Builder Basic” anymore.
The marble back splash has just enough pattern to be interesting, but not enough to compete with the granite.
The very last detail was just installed on Saturday. The new base cabinets did not have any shelves, so I had custom shelves made by “Shelves That Slide”. The island holds all my mixing bowls.
The cabinet next to the oven holds my every day use pots and pans.
I love that my lid rack fit in here also.
Now everything I need is at my fingertips.
The wonderful walk-in pantry in this house is a bonus for sure. Now I have a lot of cabinet space, so this is the icing on the cake.
The new floors are a dream. 100% waterproof. All I have to do is vacuum and mop – and look at how gorgeous they are. This is a product called NuCore from Floor & Decor.
It is always such a thrill when your vision turns out even better than you hoped. I absolutely love my new kitchen.
So what do you think? Amazing simple transformation or what? I will do a resource post later this week.
