kitchen before and "after"

well here we are...the kitchen. this was the only room through out the whole house that had 

some type of  "color".

and it wasn't good...

 

as you can see, the floors were a white-ish tile, the cabinets were original to the house and painted blue, the counter tops were...

 

a really bad version of baltic brown granite..more orange then brown.

honestly, they were gross...it looked like vomit every where. 

 

the backsplash was not bad.

it was a tumbled marble, not my taste..but like i said..it wasn't bad.

 the combination of the backsplash and counter though..was just down right horrible.

 

there was an double bowl sink and this cheap pullout faucet that every time you used the pullout

it would get stuck.

 

this was a little bit of a childhood flash back for myself and b.

an electric can opener.

do you guys remember these and how cool they were when they first came out?

you couldn't wait to open a can just to see it spin around.

 

next the refrigerator was this closet that housed what we ended up calling "the bomb".

aka: 1980's hot water heater with a severe gas leak.

 

i know you all wanted to see it, so here it is.

pretty huh?

would you believe that someone (really smart...not.)

tapped into this tank for the refrigerator's water supply?

CRAZY!

 

this picture is a tad weird, it was apart of the listing of our house but i wanted to show it because you can see the fluorescent fixture that was in the old kitchen.

 

there was also this fluorescent strip behind the window valance. it looked like a bug zapper.

 

so the first order of business was to remove the white tile floor and huge light box!

 

and let's not forget the "bomb"! that needed to go asap.

 

the oak flooring was installed right after and so was the new can lights.

just adding new floor and different lighting made such a huge difference to the kitchen.   

 

this is an odd picture, i know...but the tube behind the valance was replaced with a nice new can light.

begone tube! :)

 

while the electrician was in the house, we asked him to replace all the switches and outlets with new white ones. they were so discolored and gross looking. just seeing white outlets made me giddy. crazy huh? what can i say...i love details like this!

 

the hardwood floors received their first coat and were given a protective cover so that the rest of the work could be done. like removing the tumbled marble backsplash and orange granite.

 

we replaced the countertops with honed black granite, a classic choice.

 

as you can see from two pictures up, there was drywall patching  (check out the ceiling)

going on in the kitchen.

that meant this old hot water heater area was starting to shape into a usable space..finally!

 

once the countertops were done, the white subway tile was installed and the cabinets

started to get primed for new paint. 

 

then the painting began...walls, cabinets, interior doors, trim and ceiling were all given a fresh coat.

 

before we moved in, this is pretty much what it looked like minus the painters cloths.

 

unfortunatly (what you can't see from this picture) we were still missing our kitchen faucet (waiting for the 3rd faucet to arrive..long story.) which meant no functioning sink or dishwasher, our stove was left in the garage and needed to be reconnected (never understood that) and our refrigerator's water supply was not connected. oh and there is no hardware on the cabinets (really not a big deal compared to the rest).

 

 at least the simple chrome knobs were installed the day we moved in. this picture was taken our first week in the house.

 

the other items, they slowly were installed our first week we lived in here.

gotta love construction!

 

once our new faucet was finally installed...

i will say, i was unbelievably happy because that meant we could finally have a functioning kitchen and do dishes! :)

 

obviously, things have changed since these pictures but we are still working on all the rooms. 

i do plan to share things that we do to each room as we go along. it's a work in progress..but we are so very happy with what has already been done to it!