Kitchen Overhaul

Like most people, Cory and I have often dreamed about our ideal kitchen.  It would have shiny, high-end appliances, gorgeous cabinetry, tons of storage, solid surface counter tops, and all the bells and whistles you can image.  It would be spacious, open, and airy.  It would be the space where the family and guests naturally convene to spend time together.  It would be perfect.

If we had been able to build our forever home we likely would have been able to create the space of our dreams.  But since we never did find the perfect place to build, the kitchen we ended up with in our house left a lot to be desired.  

A lot.  LOT.

Photos don't do this kitchen justice.  The cabinets lacked proper shelving on the inside and were dirty and awkwardly shaped.  The island was bizarre to say the least.  There were outdoor sconces on either side of the Snow White windows.  Everything just felt . . . eh.

A major overhaul was definitely in order.

This space presented many challenges for us to overcome.  I fought SUPER hard to save one very cool feature in the kitchen that I only briefly shared here a few months ago.

I was totally smitten by the idea of a gorgeous set of back stairs leading down to the kitchen.  I could imagine the kids traipsing sleepily down the stairs in their jammies in the morning and plopping down at an island to eat breakfast.  I could envision them sitting quietly on the stairs on Christmas Eve, listening for the sound of Santa leaving presents under the tree.  

I really wanted these stairs.

But then reality slapped me across the face as I fully absorbed just how steep and narrow these stairs were.  And my visions of cute kids creeping down the stairs quickly became nightmares of kids with broken noses and ankles as they fell down the stairs instead.

And from a design standpoint, the stairs took up valuable kitchen space that would be much better suited for things like, oh, appliances.

My beloved kitchen stairs had to go.

During the winter months, Cory and I spent nights and weekends completely demolishing the kitchen.  Not only did the stairs end up in the dumpster, so did the cabinets, counters, and flooring.

Piece by piece, Cory and I and his dad took apart the kitchen.  Take note of the lovely construction of the cabinets.

This mini-fridge that had to be at least 20 years old was tucked inside a cabinet under the window.  Beside it were wooden boards sitting upon metal racks: shelves for those who have never seen such magnificent construction.

The island was tricky to take apart because of the plumbing.  Cory used one of his new favorite tools, a Saws All, to cut the boards around the pipes.  Unfortunately, he nicked one of them and we had a nifty fountain in the kitchen until he turned the water off.

Such fun memories.

With most of the cabinets removed the kitchen became an empty space full of dirty debris.  And we could clearly see the footprint we had to work with when designing our new kitchen.

We could also see that it wasn't much space.  One wall had three doors: a door to the garage, a door to a closet, and a door to the back stairs.  The front wall had an exterior door and a bank of windows.  It didn't allow for much wall space at all.

Plus, there was a narrow wall between the kitchen and family room that was simply in the way.

We had a good idea of what we wanted to do, but there was still tons of clean-up to tackle before setting about making this our dream kitchen.  The floors were beyond gross.  Several layers of linoleum sat upon "asbestos suspicious" green tiles.  Cory and his dad did their best to get it all out of there, but that green stuff was stuck fast to some areas and wasn't budging.  It will have to remain that way.

So our grand plan for the kitchen was a bit involved.  We really needed more square footage in order to fit everything in there comfortably.  So we decided to completely remove the front wall (the one with the windows) and bump out the kitchen four feet.  There was a porch there before, so essentially the porch became part of the kitchen.

Removing this wall was quite a process.  We had to remove all the plaster and old insulation, which was just gray dirt after 55 years of sitting in the walls.  Then I (yes, I) had to shovel all that mess into buckets, carry the buckets of filth outside to the dumpster, and dump it all in.  That doesn't sound like a big deal, but that stuff is heavy and dirty and after an hour or so of shoveling and dumping my muscles were shot.

Then the professional crew had to build the new outside wall.  Fortunately, the existing porch footings and concrete were sufficient for the base of the addition.  It took some time, but eventually the new walls were built and we could take down the old wall.

Those three windows?  Yeah, they are all ONE window.  And they weigh approximately 7,372 pounds.  And Cory and I had to remove them and move them to the garage ourselves.  I may have burst a vein in my forehead.

We basically had to remove ALL the plaster in the kitchen.  Every wall had to be stripped down to the studs.  The narrow wall between the kitchen and family room needed to go, too.  In order to make this one big, open space, a beam had to be set between the two rooms.

This was serious work man.  Serious.  Work.

And it seemed to take forever.

But hey, look!  A beam!  The crew built some new supports at the sides of the kitchen and before long we had and open kitchen / family room.

My goodness!  Look at that!  Through the magic of not blogging very often, the once gross, debris-filled, empty space has transformed into an almost-kitchen!  In reality, it took almost six months to get to this point.  The front of the kitchen is now four feet deeper.  We had to put a second beam overhead where the old wall was because it turned out to be a structural wall.  And this beam has caused a bit of a headache for us.

There is now a little nook in the right corner where cabinets just don't fit correctly due to the support wall for the beam.

If we put a cabinet with a drawer here as planned, we could only open the drawer about six inches.  Fail.  So instead we are going to put some open shelving there and use it for a coffee / pet food nook.  Fingers crossed it works.

The wall that once had three doors and the back stairs is now home to cabinetry and a spot for a fridge and freezer.  The area to the right where the back stairs once were is now a door to the garage.

Another change to the structure of the room is the doorway to the dining room.  We had to move it to the left to accommodate the bump-out of the front wall and the placement of the new cabinets on the right side wall. 

Our cabinets are a modern, shaker style in pure white.  There are so many trees around the house that make the inside shady, so my goal is to make the space as light and bright as possible.  However, the large island that has yet to arrive will be a gorgeous turquoise green.  I'm giddy thinking about it.  *smile*

So, to say the kitchen has undergone a major transformation is well, accurate.  It barely resembles the space it used to be.

And that makes me very, very happy.

Small Disasters

Just when we think we're making major headway and things are moving right along . . .

This happens.

Last night my sister Becky and I went to the house to unpack some of the bamboo flooring so it can acclimate to the house.  When we went upstairs I saw some water on the floor at the top of the main stairs.  And when I looked up, sure enough, there was a water mark on the ceiling.  The ceiling that was just drywalled and painted.  As in DONE.

I wasn't happy.

A quick message to our contractor revealed that it had to be the A/C unit in the attic.  I was supposed to check the drip pan and make sure the insulation wasn't blocking it, but I couldn't climb the steep ramp to get into the attic.  Plus, the light in the storage room that has the attic access isn't working and I could hardly see anything in there.

Within a few minutes the slow drip became a fast drip.  I put a bucket under the drip, texted our contractor again, and ended up turning off the A/C per his instruction.

Today when I stopped at the house I saw the result of that lovely little drip.  A big section of ceiling had to be torn down so the guys could figure out what was going on.  And it turns out that THERE IS NO DRIP PAN under the flippin' A/C unit!  This is something that should have been a problem for the previous owners as we never touched that unit or anything around it.  How nice that it decided to make a mess right after we did all that finish work.

I guess I can look on the bright side.  We haven't laid the wood floor yet, so at least it isn't damaged.

Yeah, let's look at the bright side.

Bigger Bedrooms

One of my requirements for buying a house was that it had to have decent sized kids' bedrooms.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think kids need huge spaces to themselves.  I just prefer that there is room for more than just a bed and nightstand.  My kids like to play, read, draw, and do all sorts of things in their rooms, and when the bed takes up more than half of the space it just feels cramped and unwelcoming.

When Cory and I looked at this house I immediately knew the bedrooms would be a problem.  Two of them were SUPER tiny and a third was a decent size but had two dormers and was narrow.  It made for an awkward space that would be tricky to fit furniture in comfortably.

Two tiny rooms (each had a full-sized bed that ate up most of the floor space):

 

Awkward dormer room:

There was a dormer on each side of the narrow closet.  I don't believe there was even a hanging rod in the closet; there were simply a few shelves.

I believe the previous owner used the counter for scrapbooking.

Awkward, right?  I mean, where do you even put a bed?

So when we created the open upstairs study area for the kids we did it so that we could expand the two really tiny bedrooms and still have a "hallway" to get to each room.  The rooms as they were just didn't make sense for us.

THIS makes sense for us.

By taking the few feet from what was the hallway and adding it to the two tiny back bedrooms we ended up with two really nice sized rooms for Tessa and Clara.

Months and months of demo, wiring, plumbing, plaster repair and drywall installation transformed these spaces dramatically.

This is now Tessa's room!  She has some neat angles in this corner because the other side of the wall is the top of the main stairs.  I saw the angles as an opportunity to do a fun paint accent.

Professional painters did all the priming, ceilings, and main walls.  I decided to paint the accent colors myself after learning that the painters charge $100 for every color they use.  I had eleven colors in the upstairs alone.  WHAT???   No way was I paying an extra grand for paint.  So I nixed several colors entirely and got to work painting.

Gray, yellow, and white has always been one of my favorite color combos.  I knew that I wanted to do Tessa's room in those colors.  It was a no-brainer.  All the walls in her bedroom are a pretty, soft gray except for the corner wall which is a cheery yellow.  I'm going to do a stencil treatment in white on the opposing wall.

This room is SO MUCH roomier, brighter, and happier than it was before.  Can you believe the difference?  And it's not even done!

Clara gets the room beside Tessa's.  Her's started as a tiny, dirty, red room:

Underneath that threadbare carpet was this:

Lovely, right?  This was actually what we found under all the bedroom carpets.  There was hardwood around the perimeter and carpet in the center.  The carpet was so saturated in dog pee and who knows what else that the padding just crumbled apart.  I can tell you that that was fun to clean up.  Heh.

Anyway, her room picked up the same amount of space from the hallway that Tessa's gained.

One difference between the two rooms is that while Tessa has a relatively small closet due to it being on an angled corner, Clara's closet ended up being quite spacious.  Before it was a small closet with a set of built-in shelves to the left.  The extra square feet from the hallway ended up doubling the size of the closet.  However, you can see that it has a window in it.  That window was in the last bedroom at the end of the hall that had the Williamsburg-esque built-in bed.

Not to worry though.  The roof line outside that window was raised for the addition so the other side is now a back stair case.  The crew just removed the window and drywalled the space to make it complete.

Her walls were painted a soft white, and I painted the window wall a pretty teal color that is in her bedding.  The opposite wall will have a geometric stencil treatment in chocolate brown.  I'm SUPER excited about these stencil walls!

I'd say it's a big improvement already!  

It's truly amazing how much a few feet of space can do for bedrooms.  These girls will be quite happy here for a long time.