Monday, February 13, 2012 Kitchen Dreaming
Happy Monday! Our kitchen is almost done for the temporary 5 year fix we have agreed to do before a big 'ol reno. The first thing we did was lay down some Ikea floors. We put them down about a year and a half ago and they have held up pretty great so far! We painted everything white, then painted again when we quickly learned a kitchen is no place for matte white paint. Joey redid all the cabinets after we got a $10K+ quote to refinish them. Joey has been working on that massive post, as we are excited to share.
We also used some $15 reclaimed wood to add some texture - it was a quick and easy process and we love it.
Additionally we replaced the countertops, faucet, and backsplash of one side of the kitchen. Our DIY kitchen mini renovation has been a really long process, but finally with the additional of some new appliances, it's starting to feel good.
Right now we have the new stove all set up and in working order, but the raw wall behind it is a temporary eyesore. We will be installing a microwave with a built in vent, and adding drywall realllllly soon. This grosses me out. We have written 14 posts about the kitchen so far, so if you are lost about how we did everything, that link will get you up to speed!
The big hole where the old dishwasher use to be, is finally filled with the shiny new one!
Across the kitchen is almost 100%. We Put up the backsplash and now we need to put covers on the outlets.
We know renovating a Kitchen can be one of the most expensive tasks you can take on while renovating a home. It's super stressful to have it not complete when you love to cook as much as I do. To completely renovate our kitchen would cost around $50,000, and we have been able to do what we have done under $2,000. We still need to:
- Add lighting
- Add backsplash to the stove/sink side of the kitchen
- Drywall behind the stove
- Buy and install a microwave vent
Pretty good! We got the "to-do's" lower than the "have-dones"! Have you been working on your own kitchen renovation on a budget? We would love to see what you have been up to! Also curious if anyone has any experience with a microwave vent. Is is as great as it seems?
Reader Comments (7)
I love the little snippets you're sharing!
You guys made a lot of the same choices we made when we redid our kitchen in LA last year. :-)
@tanja i love it! i can't believe we really did make a lot of the same decisions! it looks so good! thanks for sharing :)
I have just noticed the giant bottle of Tabasco - absolutly LOVE!!
The rest of the kitchen is pretty awesome too, when we moved into our apartment this time last year we ripped out our nasty old kitchen and put in a white one with solid wood worktops too. http://madeinmorningside.blogspot.com/2012/01/kitchen-before-and-after.html
I really like your tiles with the dark grout, we spent a long time thinking about ours, it was amazing how difficult choosing them could be.
Word to the wise... some dishwashers are more sanitizes than scrubbers. if the big stuff isn't cleaned off ahead of time, Joey might have to spend his Tuesday night taking it apart to clean it out... YUCK ;)
@Ashleigh LOVE what you did! It looks awesome!! Yea, we took about 6 months agreeing on grout. no joke....
@toddyJ Yuck!
I love the dark grouting with the white tile it looks really effective xo