Saturday, June 11, 2016

Home Tour: Kitchen Update

Hey y'all! I guess I should probably just quit starting every post with an apology for the lack of consistent posting because at this point you're probably all like OKAY WE GET IT YOU CAN'T KEEP UP WITH IT STOP APOLOGZING. It's true. I can't. HOWEVER, I have had good reason for it and I'm here to tell you what that reason was. The kitchen. More specifically, the kitchen update! The kitchen was something that I both loved and hated about our house when we chose it. 

Things I loved:
  • The size. It's huge. 
  • The flooring. Wide plank hardwoods are life. I wish ours were darker but I will TAKE IT!
  • The window above the sink. Something I always wanted!
  • The bay window in the breakfast nook. I mean...natural light is always the goal!
  • The number of cabinets. We have cabinet space galore!
Things I hated:
  • The yellowed 80's countertops. Our countertops were original to the house. The house is 2 years older than me. You do the math. (Reference last post for my current age).
  • The refrigerator. Same issue. It had been replaced in the early 90's however...it was still very yellowed and icky and when it's that big of an appliance...it sticks out like a sore thumb!
  • The color of our many wonderful cabinets. I am still not a fan of the reddish wood cabinets however, the new changes have helped soften them a lot! (More on that in a second!)
  • The lack of a backsplash. Although I would come to love that it did not have one because THAT made it much easier to put one in ourselves!
  • The sink and faucet. The sink was stainless which normally I love...HOWEVER, it was very shallow and very worn. The faucet had all kinds of issues and I realized while gathering my pictures for this post that I do not have a picture of the of it. Boo. 
OKAY! Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let me tell you a little something about what the hubs and I have been doing for the last several months. Here's the thing: updates aren't cheap. In order to make them more affordable, we have had to do a LOT of saving and a LOT of waiting. The key is to do it in steps. Our first step in updating our kitchen was a fresh coat of paint. This poor room has gone from it's original green walls (previous owners) to a dark blue (me) and then once I decided that made it look too much like a CAVE...it's current very light gray. 

Next step and without a doubt the MESSIEST step: Backsplash. Remember how I said I hated that there was no backsplash? Well that is true. HOWEVER, the utter lack of a backsplash did make it much, much easier to install one because we did not have an old surely outdated one to remove beforehand. Just ask my parents...removing an old tile backsplash is not something you ever really want to have to do in your life. Of course since I'm me and I wish I was Joanna Gaines, I went with a white subway tile pattern and dark, dark grout. I'm not sure why. I love white. White is my best friend when it comes to any decor decisions. However, I don't love trying to keep white grout clean, so I went in the opposite direction for once. This project took a couple days and a LOT of help from my precious Dad who had JUST finished doing his own backsplash project at their home. (By the way you should see my parent's kitchen it is UNBELIEVABLY beautiful. My mom is the reason I love to design and decorate. She is the true master.) Anyways, it was hard and messy and sticky and I was pretty sure I would NEVER be able to get all of the grout out of my kitchen and out from under my fingernails but...both happened. Yay! So, we finally had a backsplash and I was thrilled. This project was actually unbelievably cheap. We spent roughly $100 on the whole thing. That's what I'm talking about! The materials all came from home depot and the labor came from us. Here is the first picture I took of it when it was all finished and cleaned!
I love it more everyday! That was the first step I took towards bringing more white into my yellowed 80's kitchen. It was cheap but it was hard work. The next step...a new fridge. I don't have any pictures specifcally of the old one but like I said...early 90's...defective ice maker...yellow-tinted...grossness. The hubs actually wanted to replace it even more than I did. The water dispenser on the old one had all sorts of problems and he got tired of dealing with it. Throw in the lack of an ice maker and it was enough to make him want to throw it out on the street and leave it there. Weirdly enough, we actually looked for a new one for quite awhile. I wanted stainless and one with a freezer drawer. He wanted one with a chilled in-door water dispenser...so we compromised. (Because the ones with both of those features were just too out of our price range.) We ended up with this beaut. It is an LG stainless (yay me!) side by side with chilled water and ice dispenser just like M wanted. I love it. It has already made our lives easier and instantly updated the kitchen without even trying. It's just so big. In order for our kitchen to ever come out of it's 90's grunge phase...we had to get that other one out the door and fast!


Next on the list was the biggest...countertops, sink, and faucet! Woo! I have wanted white marble countertops for awhile now so obviously, they were first on my list. HOWEVER, white marble countertops are EXPENSIVE. Like, real expensive. So, we went with our closest alternative. Our new countertops are...drumroll please...laminate! Yes! Your eyes may decieve you (and I hope that they do). These babies are my special marble knock-offs and I love them to pieces. I chose a pattern from Lowes called Calacatta Marble and I opted for a glossy finish and squared off edges to try my best to make them look as much like the real thing as possible. I mean let's be real...anything would have looked better than our old ones. Fun fact: when we removed the old ones (yes we did all the work ourselves with the help of my AWESOME father-in-law...much, much cheaper that way!) we saw that the name of our neighborhood was printed on the bottoms of all of them. Re-confirming that they were in fact original to our 27 year old (oops! I said it) house. Another HUGE choice we made when ordering the new countertops was to add an island. Some of you may know or remember that I originally had an old farm table in the kitchen as my island of sorts. I loved it so very much but quickly realized that it was not serving the purpose that I really needed to be served by a kitchen island...so I sold it to a sweet friend of mine who is using it in her new PRECIOUS home. I was SO glad to find someone who would love it as much as I did! The next choice was the sink. I'm sure it will come as no shock to any of you that my dream sink was a white farm sink. However those things are PRICEY and I mean PRICEY. So once again, I opted for a cheaper yet still gorgeous alternative. I chose a 9 inch deep, double bowl, cast-iron sink from lowes and I love it with all my heart. It is about 2 inches deeper than our previous sink which makes way more of a difference than you might would think. It is white and bright and just adds so much to the space. The new faucet was one that i would not budge on. At first, the hubs was wary...but now I am pretty positive he loves it even more than I do. Everytime we see one like it on any given design show he's like HEY! They have our faucet! And I'm like yeah! That's why I wanted it! Anyways...maybe now I will stop talking about all of this and actually show you what our kitchen looked like...then and now.

Here it is when we bought it:




Here it is when we first started to make some changes:





and here it is now!















Here are a couple more specific before and after shots:










I would still love to one day update the other appliances and maybe even paint those reddish-brown wood cabinets, but for now, I think I'll just grab my new favorite Princess Diaries inspired mug (real fans will get it!) given to me for my birthday by one of my besties, sit back, relax, and enjoy my light and bright kitchen.


Cheers y'all and happy weekend!

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