Before & After: Kim’s Kitchen Reveal
It's been a while since I've posted a house update. I can image you have all been dying to know what's new in the Seidensticker abode. I'm being sarcastic. I rarely ever talk about home stuff on here, so you probably don't even know that my husband and I bought a house two years ago and have been slowly updating it ever since.
Our kitchen remodel is our third and last big project for the house. Side note, we re-did our guest bath a while back but I haven't shared anything about it yet as I still can't talk about the project without getting upset. We intentionally saved the kitchen for last because we wanted to fully understand how we use the kitchen, what we like about it, what is missing, etc. before making any changes.
We liked that the old kitchen was nice and white. This corner of the house doesn't get much light, so having white cabinets brightened up the space. Now, what we felt was missing: More storage space, particularly for pantry type items. A range with more than two burners. A dishwasher that works. And then there's the aesthetic things we wanted to update - like the linoleum floors and counter top.
Are you ready for the new kitchen reveal, because here it comes! The cabinets are a bright white, like the old kitchen. However, now we have cabinets going all the way up to the ceiling for extra storage. We also have cabinets around the refrigerator and a pull-out pantry for storing food. We changed the shape of the kitchen from a U shape to an L shape. So now the flow from the dining room to the kitchen is unobstructed. The back wall of the kitchen is my absolute favorite thing about the whole entire house! I knew I wanted to have open shelving in our kitchen with a colorful pop of tile to add contrast against all the white cabinets and add warmth against the steel appliances.
If you're thinking about renovating your kitchen anytime soon, here are a few helpful tips I've learned from going through the process:
To get the best deals on appliances purchase them at the end of the year during the Christmas sales season. Also, purchasing appliances all from one brand can get you deals too. We got our dishwasher for free and the microwave at a steep discount because we bought the fridge and range from the Bloomberg brand.
Take the time to put together a mood board and don't be afraid to show it to everyone you're working with. I saved my mood board to my phone and showed it to sales people while we were shopping for countertops, cabinets, and tile. It saved us so much time because they knew exactly what materials to show us.
Last tip, expect everything to cost 3x what you think it will and take 3x as long as your contractors say it will. And plan accordingly. Since I work from home, we decided to stay at our family's house for a week during the construction process. The project took about 4 weeks, with one week being a dead week while we waited for the countertops to be cut. I was really craving peace and quiet by the end of it!
SHOP KITCHEN DECOR
