Kitchen Remodel

Cue the band..."At laaaaasst, my kitchen has come along, my dishwashing days are over, and life is like a song..."! The kitchen is done and with that, we bid adieu to the gold-fleck tile of the 1950s and welcome a new fangled machine called an automatic dishwasher. Oh sweet love. 

This was the kitchen before demo began in mid-July.

In a couple hours, we tore our the upper cabinets and many of the lowers, moved the stove out of the way, and opened the space up for our (volunteer) contractor, Dave, to cut a hole in the wall.

Which he did. It became a raceway for a month-ish. There was electrical work, and plumbing work under the house. The original paint colors were oh-so-tempting in the interim.

Then Bryan and Dave tore up the flooring and redid it. Something about it not being level. Huh. In this house?!?

Bryan put on the cement board.

 

And we had a bare naked kitchen, all prepped and ready for new to come in.

The addition of bottoms was a happy day. It also meant we brought the stove back in from the garage after a 2 week hiatus, and turned the water back on. Whew. 

 The next step was getting the counter top glued on and beginning to lay tiles. Sore knees!

Don't be fooled by the smile; this project did not make us happy. Two steps forward, five steps back felt like our mantra.

The grout is in and we even hosted a birthday party at this stage in the game.

Progress continued. Yes, that's a dishwasher - a running dishwasher! - in our kitchen. Bryan hooked it up all by himself to much fanfare. Dave came back for a quick partial install of the upper cabinets. He found our cabinets on CraigsList, picked them up, and made them fit our space. Incredible man. At this stage, it really felt like it would never end, in spite of the obvious progress.

We were in a holding pattern for several months like this, through the holidays. All the appliances worked, though the microwave was still in the garage. The everyday dishes were in the cupboard, but most other items remained in garage tubs. We clearly can get by with far fewer kitchen gadgets than previously imagined!

Dave came down the first week of February and put in the last cabinets and did the final electrical for the microwave. Mitch helped install the microwave - no more going out to the garage for that!

Bryan and Dad did the backsplash. Some cuts from the glass, but otherwise a smooth and easy process. I LOVE it!

We lived with the kitchen in a state of near completion for months. It was so close to being done and we loved it already. Just waiting on the finishing touches. 

In April and May, we put in a new light fixture and Bryan even got a new door (classy!). We shipped Poly north since we didn't want a cat door cut into it and braced ourselves for selling. 

 We listed Monday afternoon at 3pm, had 3 showings that night, and 4 on Tuesday. Wednesday we had a realtor open house and that afternoon looked through 3 offers. 

We accepted an offer just over listing with the buyer paying closing costs! That would not have happened as quickly without this kitchen and the tremendous help we had throughout the project. We have loved our home - and even more with the updates! Time to celebrate - and keep packing!