Kitchen renovation part 1

It has begun. What an undertaking it is. But, already I can see that it is one worth taking.

The background:

  Back when we were building, we bought not 1 but 2 display kitchens from a kitchen design center. This would be perfect because we were building and it gave us more then we would be able to afford, including beautiful granite counter-tops. Plus, neither kitchen was as big as we wanted, so the combo of the two would give us a great kitchen, but also give us some bathroom vanities and possibly built-ins for the fireplace.  

Then we bought, and owed. We paid $7,500 for $20,000 in kitchens and planned on paying it off with our construction loan. Well, without that loan we owed $7,500 for a kitchen that was sitting in our garage. So, we have been slowly paying it down, but this is not ideal. The bonus is, I hated the kitchen in our house, it was real negative on the house for me. It was in great shape, but just not functional for us. The cabinets were small, we had to put our plates sideways to get them in. There was no counter space, which became extremely obvious when I tried making sugar cookies at Christmas and had to make them on the dining room table. So, having this beautiful kitchen just sitting there, allowed us to replace a kitchen that we most likely would have not gotten around to for years. Because honestly, who has $20,000 just laying around, or can save that... Not us. Not with two little ones and a 3rd on its way.

The next tricky part was scheduling my Dad. He is extremely busy with his own construction business, so to get him over here to help install a kitchen became a matter of when? So, luckily I was able to get a little pressure. I posted our old kitchen on craigslist and sold it! $1,400 for the cabinets, trim, fridge, sink, counters, and stove. Great deal! And it gave us a date that we had to have the kitchen out by.

The demolition:

Took one Saturday for 3 guys (Dad, husband, and brother). This was a little trickier then most demos because they needed to keep everything in good condition. Plus, they ripped up our nasty metallic linoleum floors AND removed the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. Great work for a day!!








One thing this uncovered is that we will definitely be needing to splurge and bring an electrician in. As you can see we had to live with lots of exposed wires for a week or so. Baby gates went up and luckily the kids seemed uninterested in them.

The Installation-

By the end of weekend 1, we had 3 bottom cabinets in and 1 upper.

Weekend 2 was better. We were able to get the door out, and 4 more cabinets in.

This still meant no sink, no dishwasher. Luckily at this point we still have the stove and the fridge. But that was soon to change. By the end of weekend #2, we lost the fridge and the stove. The people buying our old kitchen were coming and we had to get all the stuff in the garage for the pick up. So, we brought up our new fridge, but were stove-less for a while. We were still waiting for the gas guy to come install the gas line.

Washing dishes in the bathroom wasn't the end of the world, but I'd prefer not to do it anymore. It did bring back memories of my husbands apartment in the city when we first started dating. He lived in a basement apartment that was just a room. We hooked it up with a burner and a little convection oven, but dishes were always done in the bathtub.

Weekend 3, two days and we were semi complete. Hood went in, gas line in, sink in, all cabinets, and even the island. The best part - I LOVE IT!!!! We may be living with plywood countertops and plywood floors for quite a while, but I don't care. I absolutely am speechless at the amount of space we have in there. Plus the new appliances are awesome. You can see our granite in one of the pictures. We have the majority of the granite in the garage, but because of our strange configuration we need a little bit more to finish it up. Nothing like renovating a kitchen on a negative budget, hopefully soon our money tree will grow and we'll get "kitchen renovation part 2".  But, for now, I just look in that room and I see the transformation that this house will be. I love my new kitchen.









 

Side Note:
Unfortunately, in the process of taking the wall down, we learned that the heater and the wires were also those that connected to the heaters in the office and the laundry room. So we are now at a month without heat in those rooms. Crank the wood stove and the heat and pray for no frozen pipes. Oops.