Kitchen Remodel Done!

We finally finished the kitchen! 

 We started Feb 2012 when Chris stayed home during his paternity leave when Zoie was born.  

The two pictures below are from the selling brochure.  We did most of the work ourselves but did have some help on the major things (Like replacing the 3 layers of linoleum with hardwood floor, replacing the fermica counters with granite, and replacing the florescent lights with can lights.)  

Before

After

We did not replace the cabinets because they are in pretty good shape, but since we wanted a different color- Chris painted them a pearl white and replaced all of the handles.  The walls were painted yellow, so we repainted them a light grey, added crown molding  and replaced the brown trim with white trim.  

I love the new floors!  

We installed the stone back splash, but wanted something different over the stove area to give the room it a little more character.  Here is the darker stone.

Everywhere else we used a marble mosaic.

  If you look over the sink in the Before pic there was a board that connected the two cabinets, but I wanted more light from the window so we removed it.  Because we removed that part we needed to replace all the crown that runs over the top of the cabinets- so we chose a higher profile to give the cabinets more height.

We got a new sink and faucet.  I basically ordered the biggest sink that would fit in the space.  

Just because she is adorable!

We didn't touch the trim around the window seat because I wanted that to retain its character and the trim is is really good shape.  

This is our granite- I love it!  It is called Light Venetian Gold. Fortunately we have a friend who is a stone distributor so we saved $$$ on our granite and the back splash stone.

We didn't care for the fridge that came with the kitchen because it didn't match the other appliances, but it worked so we didn't think about spending the extra money.  But in June, it died.  So I cried for 1 second and then we went off the next day to look for a new fridge.  We found this one at a Sear's Appliance Outlet center and it was discounted really low because it was last year's model.  Who updates their fridge every year? Sheesh.

Side note: We were thinking about refacing the cabinets so I called around and got some quotes.  Just to reface the cabinets would have cost $9000. So instead we bought some paint.  All of the paint for this room (walls, trim, and cabinet paint) was about $200 and  we paid $50 for the new handles.  The moral of the story is- you can remodel/update for a lot less if you look around and ask around and put in some elbow grease.  The best part is- the kitchen is durable so our kids don't have to walk on eggshells when they work on their projects.