Some of you may already know that Brian and I have bought a new house! We can start moving in Monday next week and could not be more excited. We have decided to keep the condo as well as a rental property. In an effort to attract better/high paying tenants we went ahead and updated the kitchen. The kitchen we have been using was updated years ago by the previous owner and was starting to show some wear and tear. It also lacked storage for large items like pots and pans and just lacked storage in general for such a large space. These are some before pictures:
We like the white cabinets with white appliances; it really makes the kitchen feel bright. You can see too that the appliances are all relatively new (the stove is less than a year old) but the cabinets and counters could use some work. That last picture shows my least favorite of them all. This one is by the stove and has clearly taken a beating by all the steam. The second picture shows our only full size wall cabinet. Not pictured is the wasted corner space between the sink and stove. Also not pictured is how off center and unlevel everything is. Another problem I have with this kitchen for a rental is the laminate countertops. Not only is that my least favorite type of counter, but one hot pot gets set on it and it could be ruined.
So, we drew up a plan and headed to Home Depot! After purchasing cabinets and counters we called up our contractor, Bill, and he got straight to work. I came home after one day to this:
All the old cabinets and counters were gone and so was most of the drywall. He explained that the way the backsplash (that I hated) was installed he basically had to rip all the drywall apart to get it off so he was just going to put up some nice new drywall for us.
We hit a minor snafu with the plumbing but he called his plumber out and got right back to work. A few days later I came home to this:
We stuck with white to match our appliances but went with solid wood rather than the laminated cabinets. We also changed the layout a bit. Moved the stove 6" toward the refrigerator and the sink 8" toward the doorway to get a nice large corner cabinet in there for pots and pans. We also decided to drop the wall cabinet down over the sink to be flush with the other cabinets. I was concerned about this at first since typically kitchens seem to have a smaller cabinet above the sink. However, since we moved the sink over, in order to do that we would end up with only one full wall cabinet and it would be smaller than what we had originally. The idea being to acquire more storage, this seemed counter productive so we went with two full wall cabinets straight across. I think it will be ok in the end.
All the appliances are back in place. Bill said he just has a few more touch ups to do and then he will be out of there. Now that the cabinets are set in their final places we have the counter top installers scheduled. Then Brian and I can get to painting that fresh new drywall and adding a backsplash!
All this time my poor cats have been locked up in a room so they can't get into anything. When I let them out after work they love to go see what is going on though. Kahlua has made herself right at home on Bill's equipment.
I can't wait to share the final product with you but even more than that I can't wait to get moved in to our new place and have a functioning kitchen again!!!
Cheers,
k
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