full scale kitchen reno: steps start to finish

You saw my list of kitchen issues on the last post, so here are our steps, start to finish.

We knew when we bought our house, built in 1955, that the kitchen was far less than ideal. The grand plans for it took a few years to bear fruit, but it’s been worth it. By my estimation, the steps of kitchen renovation are as follows:

1. I’m just glad our new house in a great neighborhood. The kitchen will be fine for a few years.

2. Boy, this space was planned poorly. You can only have one thing open at a time. And I can’t carry a 9x13 tray length-wise through these narrow doorways.

3. Your. Mom. Put. A. Diaper. In. The. Garbage. Compactor. WHO HAS A GARBAGE COMPACTOR

4. Nothing ever looks clean in here! ARGHHHHHHHHHH

5. I can’t stand being cut off from everyone inside this cave with its tiny, skinny doorways. And I smashed my toe AGAIN on the one-inch height difference between the floors.

6. Finally reach our (first) savings goal, and plan a kitchen with very trendy styles. Decide that’s not what you want.

7. Wait until the next year to actually build the new kitchen and be very pleased with the results.

Before (where we started)

And here are the steps to “After”…

Demolition

Open the Walls

New Framing

Electrical and Insulation

Drywall

Floor (redo old, seam in new)

Cabinets

Countertops

Backsplash

Appliances

Finished!

full-scale kitchen renovation

I love our house, and the neighborhood is great, but the kitchen was silly. List of issues:

• Very small

• Closed off from everything (two EXTRAORDINARILY skinny doorways at opposite ends)

• Nothing could open at the same time. The cabinets and drawers all smashed into each other, going the wrong ways.

• Drawers weren’t actually drawers (with slides) so when you opened them, you had to hold the pull in your hand the whole time so it wouldn’t just fall out

• Garbage compactor was a huge waste of space

• Old counters made of mismatching material, seamed together with long metal strips

• Floor was randomly 1” taller than the rest of the house (CONSTANT TRIPPING)

• Shallow pantry (appx 1 can deep and not a large can)

• Weird mismatched walls like corkboard, tile, and wallpaper with lots of holes

When it came to planning a renovation, it’s important to know that the stairs are in the exact center of our home. So to the two dozen people who knocked and said “why don’t you take out this wall” — while knocking on our stairs…facepalm.

We actually did look into bumping out of the front of the house to add a few dozen square feet but that was cost prohibitive because that would change the foundation and there’s a hill. Generally not worth it. Certainly did not turn out to be needed!

I neglected to take a really effective “before” picture but here are a few for contrast.

And here’s where we ended up… keep reading to see how we got there!