The Other 'New' Kitchen

Many of you saw Megan's new kitchen for Christmas. Starting before we left for Florida (story ... and pics to come) and up until about an hour ago we've been doing some moderate remodeling/updating of our kitchen too. I've been documenting it but wanted to wait until we actually finished this thing before sending it out to the blogosphere.

First .... here's a 'before' pic. Notice those three cabinets? We did, because we kept hitting our heads on it (well, I did ... Jillian's a little shorter). AND more importantly it blocked our view, closed the kitchen off, and just made it feel smaller. Also see that brown and white stripe wallpaper? That too is about to be obliterated.

Okay. So first step ... demolition. This was on December 19th. We stripped the wallpaper, ripped down the bulkhead and cabinets, and a huge strip of drywall and plaster along the wall.

Megan still wanted to be a part of the action so she put on her work gloves, grabbed her toy broom and went to work picking up trash. Meanwhile Sue, in an effort to get the walls as clean as possible was busy sanding, patching, and washing down all the walls with vinegar. That mixed with the plaster dust made a great concoction. The plaster dust was EVERYWHERE. We put up sheets leading into other rooms but it didn't matter.

Carey being a stud and driving screws into the new drywall. Then, because we wanted to place our microwave on the wall, so we could use the counter space elsewhere we had to do some minor rewiring. Throughout all of the projects Megan was constantly underfoot and loved just standing there watching everything. Once we finished up the electrical work, we put in some insulation and finished the day by closing up the hole with drywall.

The next day was a relatively minor day. We patched the wall and ceiling and started adding some bead board trim around the counter areas to 'class it up a bit.' Eventually we want to do a white subway tile but this fit our budget for now.

December 21st ... while I was down in the basement putting Megan's kitchen together, Sue was busy painting the walls of our kitchen. The color we chose is a light gray. The pictures may be tough to fully capture it but I think it looks fabulous.

December 22nd. We mounted one of the cabinets on the side wall and added trim pieces around the bead board.

It's at this point in the proceedings that we took some time off for Christmas and to head down to Florida for the week. We got 'back to work' last night determined to finish the project this weekend. We spent a few hours painting the trim pieces and the bead board, and mounting the brackets that were going to hold the shelf for our microwave. Finally, we sanded, chipped, and spackled some spots on the ceiling that were in bad shape so it could dry before we painted it today.

... and finally we arrived at today. The final day. There were lots of things to do. Jillian's mom acted as 'project manager', had a list and made sure we all got our jobs done. Here's a laundry list of the things we did today: hung blinds in 3 windows in the family room (side project), placed threshold strips at four door openings, replaced a register cover, attached the shelf to the brackets for the microwave, changed up the cord to the microwave so it was more flush to the wall, painted the ceiling, created a fabric-covered bulletin board for the hallway leading into the kitchen, cut a carpet square to fit the area for wet shoes coming in from the garage, and finally, cleaned up all of our mess we made throughout the day. BUT when it was all done (small addendum ... we hope to add bookshelves on one wall so we're not technically done yet but that will be for another time), we think it looks great. And now the final reveal ...

Many thanks to the EXTENSIVE hours put in by Carey, Sue, and Jillian throughout the course of this project. With the exception of painting the ceiling and hanging the blinds in the living room today my only job throughout this project was as photographer. There's no way our kitchen would've come out looking this good if I was more actively involved so I was more than happy to pick up dinner on several occasions and keep the fridge stocked with diet cokes.