We moved into our home 8 years ago. And for these past 8 years, we have been doing things to improve our home here and there as money allows. The house was not a fixer upper per say. However, the previous owners did their last upgrades about 10 years before they put the house on the market to sell.
We have been doing things like replacing the peach and gray colored carpets that covered the main level and the blue carpets from the upstairs bathrooms. We removed wallpaper from almost every room in the house. Our favorite was the naked people that were on my bathroom walls doing things that many naked people enjoy doing both solo and together. Yep, I said naked people doing things that naked people enjoy doing both solo and together. Yep, I am serious and NO! I am not going to show you pics of the wallpaper. It was so fun explaining THAT to my oldest (then 9) daughter! LOL!!! The previous owners really, really liked wallpaper!
My number one nemesis in this house has always been the kitchen!
Hello????
Yoo-hooooo?????
I am trying to get your attention here!!
Why do I have a feeling you are not really concentrating on my kitchen????
Just admit it…
You are still stuck on the damn naked people that were plastered on my bathroom walls aren’t you????
Let me guess, you just Googled it to see what would come up didn’t you???
STILL. NOT. SHOWING. YOU. PICS. OF. IT!!
Now stay with me here.
You can go back to your imagination after this post.
The kitchen is the heart of my home and the life line of my family.
I spend most of my time in the kitchen area cooking, homeschooling , playing with my kids, entertaining, making homemade beauty and skin care, and blogging just to name a few. After 8 yrs I had serveral issues with the kitchen.
Here is my list:
Cabinets
My cabinets came from IKEA and I have no doubt that they were expensive. They look like they spared no expense when they bought them. Jump into the time machine 18 years, a new set of owners, and 3 kids later and what you have is NOTHING cute. The cabinets we found out were made from a thick cardboard with a heavy veneer over top. This left me unable to do anything with the fronts when they began to finally show their age and the paint started chipping off.
I have also come to the conclusion that the people that hung my cabinets must have been either drunk, on drugs, or maybe a combo of both. I say this only because ALL the upper cabinets were hung too low. I am not getting picky here I promise! However, when I can not put a spice rack, knife block, coffee pot, microwave, stand mixers, food processors, etc on my countertops because they are 4 inches too low and you had to add a 4 inch crown molding to the tops of the cabinets to cover up the fact that you installed the said cabinets 4 inches too low, I have to question you. Did I mention that one side of the upper cabinets was also hung about an inch LOWER then the other side of upper cabinets? Yea, you leave me thinking they were drunk, on drugs. or a combo of both.
Backsplash
Let’s discuss the backsplash for a second too. White bathroom tiles with BLACK grout lines was someone’s idea of awesome. All I could see was the tiles that were grouted in black that were not even. Instead of switching the grout to another color that was NOT that noticeable, they chose black.
Awkward Layout
At some point they had fun moving sliding glass doors and walls in this house. Rendering me to an awkward layout when you cook daily. The fridge was out of the triangle, circle, square, ok…I am still trying to figure out the shape they had the kitchen configured in. I am assuming it worked well for them. For me, it truly did not.
Every year I would plan out the new kitchen in hopes that this year would finally be the year that we would revamp my least favorite room in the entire house. Every year we would have to nix the kitchen in lue of other things that needed our attention more. Like the one Christmas morning we woke up with NO HEAT. Yea, both the inside and the outside units and furnace passed on to where ever big household units go. I said good bye to the kitchen and hello to both heat and AC. Well worth it I have to tell you!! My designs for the kitchen were always the same. I left everything exactly the same way the previous owners had designed the kitchen layout. Yes, I am talking about the same kitchen layout that I just admitted did not work for me in the least. I just upgraded what they already did. This kitchen fit their needs. Not mine. This year proved to be no different. I added some new things I liked to my Pinterest kitchen board. Pinterest is a wonderful way to loose a couple of hours isn’t it??
Honestly…..I did not think it was EVER going to get done. I wanted to FINALLY install the amazing above ground pool that is still in the original packaging in the garage from when we bought it 4 years ago.
This year though the cabinets started to fall off their hinges. Drawer fronts began breaking off. Shelves on the inside of cabinets suddenly broke causing the entire shelving unit inside to become unusable after everything crashed like a house of cards. Scaring the ever loving Hell out of all of us!
Hubby looked at me one night while we were talking and said something to the effect of ” I want to do your kitchen this year instead of the pool. I want you to plan out the kitchen of your dreams. Do not argue with me. You need a new kitchen. The kids and everyone will benefit from it. We are doing it this year.” I remember smiling and saying something to the effect of “OK. BUT…..” Then reality hit me and I remembered the past 8 years with this kitchen remodel. It never happens. This year would be no different. It is just how it worked out.
Then in February I was told to plan it. The revamp would start in March. Friends of the Hubby were pitching in to make my dreams a reality. Then the realization hit that they were serious and for about a day or two I dared to let myself imagine what I would REALLY want this kitchen to look like. We were gutting it to the drywall. I could move anything I wanted. I could design it any way I wanted. I was given a week to plan it.
NO PRESSURE THERE! REALLY, PIECE OF CAKE! I HAD THIS ALL FIGURED OUT!
WHO WAS I KIDDING???
OVERWHELMED!
About 24 hours later, the light bulb that was stuck in my head sifting through all that I had secretly wanted in this kitchen for the past 8 years went off and within 4 hours I had my design on a kitchen planning site, mapped out to scale. Hubby was in awe. The design looked NOTHING like my previous kitchen.
It was ingenious. It was beautiful. It was functional. It was all mine.
It passed the Hubby and Hubby friends criteria too. They were not expecting me to do what I did.
I was given a meager budget of $3000 to completely revamp my kitchen. I excepted the challenge just as easily as they accepted my design ideas. It was on!
We set the date. We stuck to the date for all of a week. Then we demoed the kitchen 2 weeks early.
Here are the pics to prove it!
Where did my kitchen go???
Now, you can go back to Googling the naked people on the wallpaper.
Simplicity Redesigned 