Drum Roll Please.....The Big Kitchen Reveal, 6 Weeks in the Making

It's been a long 6 weeks, and we nearly lost it a few times in the process, but we made it and we LOVE OUR NEW KITCHEN!

Here's a look at what our kitchen looked like before...sad, dingy, and crying out for help.
Problems with our kitchen:

• 50+ year old cabinets that didn't open or close correctly with nasty wrought iron hardware. Every time we took out our pots and pans there would be saw dust inside from the old drawers
• Tangerine colored walls
• Ugly dirty beige porcelain tile, stained grout and broken tiles everywhere
• Exposed washer and dryer. I love having the washer and dryer on our first floor, but I hated how they were out in the open.
• An extra door. That's right, there were two doors going outside from the kitchen. One by the washer and dryer (which we kept) and another in the kitchen (which we closed up).
• No storage, I never had enough room for all my stuff. We just stuffed as much stuff as we could into the cabinets, it was a disorganized hot mess!!
• Ugly, bright blue laminate countertops
• Small opening between the main kitchen and the laundry area

and here's our new kitchen......



View from Living room looking into Kitchen

 



close up of our Caesarstone countertops (Raven) and white glass and Stone mosaic tile

 



New Stainless Steel appliances and IKEA Adel White cabinets and Stainless steel hardware

 



My husband's coffee & tea bar. He loves his new Keurig. I hate throwing away those little K-cups so we got a plastic filter that way he can use regular coffee instead of the k-cups. Better for the environment!

 



One of my favorite features, chalkboard wall and vinyl monogram decal. This is the side wall of our new laundry closet. You can also see our half bathroom in this photo. We didn't do much but repaint the walls and wainscotting. My father also helped me install 12" x 24" vinyl tile, Ozoloc (http://www.tomkt.com/ ) There's no adhesive, so it the tile basically floats over our old gray and pink 1950 floor tile.

 



Remember that annoying wall that separated the main kitchen from the laundry area? It's gone now. We also put a full glass french door in place of the 50-year old energy deficient wood door we had (it's not shown but just to the left)

 



Porcelain tiles, yes, Porcelain tiles, not hardwood (Marazzi tile, Metalwood)

 


Love my huge undermount stainless steel sink. I actually scored a great deal for this sink on http://www.overstock.com/ . They have a ton of home improvement products on their website and everything ships for only $2.95!

 


View of breakfast bar looking into our living room. In March we're putting double french doors in the living room that will go out to our screened three-season porch. Pendant lighting and surface mounted lighting in the rest of the kitchen is from IKEA.

My favorite part of this kitchen is that it looks like we spent a pretty penny on our new kitchen.....but we didn't. We saved a ton on handling the demo ourselves rather than having our contractor do it. Our contractor added a 6" soffit and crown molding to the top of the IKEA cabinets which in my opinion make them look custom-built. We assembled every single cabinet ourselves which saved a ton of money too. IKEA's easy online kitchen 3D planner allows you to design your own kitchen, your own "custom" kitchen.  I waited to purchase the cabinets when I found out that IKEA was offering 40% off granite or quartz countertops. I saved $1300 on my Caesarstone countertops because of this promotion. We also waited until thanksgiving weekend to score all of our appliances from Sears, the sales were worth putting up with the crowds at the store. Overall, we couldn't be happier with our new kitchen. And we finished just in time to enjoy our Valentine's Day dinner tomorrow night.

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!