The kitchen has finally reached a semi-photographable milestone.  There’s still trim to lay, painting and some minor finishing touches – but it’s basically done.

To give a bit of background, we recently purchased a 1977 modern home that hadn’t seen a lot of love in the past 35 years.  The kitchen had to be gutted -  the sink had been leaking for years, and the use of space made the kitchen feel a lot smaller than it really was.  We closed on a Friday and started the kitchen demo that night.  We knew it would be tough to live kitchenless with kids, so we hoped to minimize down time.

I haven’t added up every last Lowe’s receipt, but, to put a number to it, we completed this job for $16k.  We had hoped to keep it under $15k, so not too bad.  We did everything ourselves except the flooring and the backsplash tiling – I know – why not?  The flooring was a continuation from the adjacent rooms, who were getting an upgrade from green shag, and the tiling was a simple combination of exhaustion and a need for precision with the tiles we chose.  We gave in!  Additional info on the tile we chose has been covered in this post.

Although we live more than 3 hours from an Ikea, Pricing cabinets made it very obvious that with truck rental and hotel costs, we were still saving immensely by doing an Ikea Kitchen.  To illustrate this point, we were quoted $14k for ONLY the base cabinets of Kraft Maid Venecia from Home Depot/Expo.  All of our cabinets, including uppers, and the desk area not shown here, cost $7k. The countertop material is quartz ordered/installed through the now defunct Expo-just in time!

We removed the soffits and 2 small walls that crowded the pass through area between the ovens and the fridge.  We also made the tough decision to install only one oven in order to maximize the open feeling and gain counter space.  We enjoy cooking together, so that’s why we placed the oven offset from the cooktop.  While one person cooks at the stove, the other can access the oven without anyone having to step out of the way – a decision I still stand by as it works great for us.

Utby feet from Ikea seemed like a good idea to show off the new floors rather than using toe kick plates.  As I clean under there and chase rolling grapes, I’m not so sure it was that practical, but I still love the look.

The Original Kitchen

Before with Soffits

Before Fridge Area

Rotten Floor at Sink

Demo in Progress

Finished Floor

Typical Renovation Mess

Finally Usable

Breakfast Bar

Backsplash at Sink

As of Yesterday