Before and After Kitchen

Hear ye, Hear ye!  As of today, you will not be subjected to reading my whining about my kitchen remodel anymore!  Because we are done.  It's over. (Do you hear the trumpets sounding?)

As promised, here are my before and after pictures.  I didn't take any pictures of the process because I want to forget that mess.  Why keep pictures that make me nervous?

OK, the first photo is taken from my dining area, which is two steps below the kitchen.  I took this photo after I I had removed most of the stuff from the cabinets and countertops, so you won't really see how cluttered my counters were.  At this point, the microwave, the breadbox and most everything else had been moved. And that's why there are fire extinguishers and a step stool on the floor.

Notice the 1960's style cabinets.  (I think these are also in Betty Draper's Mad Men kitchen).  The lack of decent light. The really bad drywall ceiling.  The handmade scalloped border on the bulkhead.  The vinyl tile floor - surplus from a Burger King kitchen somewhere. The portable dishwasher.  Part of the laminate of the countertop missing. So that was it.  The extent of my cabinet and counter space.



And here is after.The dishwasher is built in and replaced by a rolling center island. We replaced the drywall ceiling with tongue and groove pine, added recessed lighting in the ceiling and under cabinet lighting.  We replaced the Burger King vinyl with ceramic, bought when we added the family room nine years ago.  And lucky us...there was just enough.

My refrigerator area.  I needed the space on top to fit cereal boxes and miscellaneous crap I used that wouldn't fit in my limited cabinets.  Like the salad spinner and plastic pitchers.  You can glimpse some of my counter top clutter in this picture.

After - with the fridge inside its own cabinet and a cabinet above.  For those pesky cereal boxes.

This is a photo of the doorway that leads to our family room.  I had a bakers rack by the door and it housed my cookbooks, some decorative stuff and the bottom shelf usually held my step stool and a bunch of other clutter.  Like potatoes.  Onions.  Pepsi.  And you can see how very lovely that ancient portable dishwasher was, with its fossilized Strawberry Shortcake stickers that were impossible to remove.

So here is the after photo.  Replaced the bakers rack with a glass front cabinet and a really useful base cabinet.  We moved the sink into the corner to add a built in dishwasher.  YES!

Ah, the clutter.  The lack of cabinetry!

It's amazing how much more space we had when we put the microwave over the stove instead of on the counter.  And the appliance garage really clears those counters even more.  Garbage was moved inside a sliding cabinet near the sink.

Here's the other side of the cabinet that replaced the bakers rack.  It faces the kitchen dining area and houses my cookbooks and my WINE.  So I can sit in that chair and just reach over and grab a bottle anytime I want.  Hey...there are empty spaces there.  Gotta remedy that.

And finally, here's a photo with the rolling island moved out of the center.  When I'm cooking, I like having that little island handy near the stove.  It houses my cutting boards, plastic wrap, foil, tupperware and eventually it'll hold my knives.  But knew I'd want to roll it out of the way when we have company.  People always stood around my dishwasher when I'd have parties and it created a big traffic jam in the kitchen. 

So that's it.  I still have a couple tiny cosmetic things to fix in the kitchen dining area.  Like re-covering the cold air returns, painting its ceiling and changing the wallpaper.  But otherwise my kitchen is finished. 

Thanks for putting up with my whining over these past two months!  I honestly could have made a career of it.  But it's all over now.  Thank heavens!  Maybe I'll even have some stitching to share one of these days...