Our Remodeled (on a budget) kitchen

Before we bought our house (I guess I should say before we closed on it), I knew exactly what I wanted to do to update the very 80's kitchen.   Our home was built in 1989 (still 80s!), and the ONE good thing about the kitchen, was that the cabinets were solid wood and in good condition.  The first home we bought new in 2004 had the more modern, less wood-like (you know what I'm talking about, right?) cabinets. 

And honestly, that was pretty much the only good thing about it.  The layout is semi decent- the location of the fridge makes accessing the cabinets beside it semi hard, but we really weren't in the position to change around anything.  We were also on an extreme budget when purchasing our house, and some things we just had to be flexible on, plus we LOVE our floorplan of the other rooms.

So, before we even closed on the house, I researched kitchens.  I read blogs, some of them over and over again, and looked at photos over and over again.   I was greatly inspired by Layla's kitchen over at The Lettered Cottage.  http://www.theletteredcottage.net/   She has since painted her cabinets white and soft greenish gray, but they were originally black.  I loved the way she turned those standard stock cabinets into something special. 

Using her kitchen as inspiration, I tried to figure out a way to visually raise the height of our cabinets... tricky since ours have a soffet (is that what that THING even is called?  LOL) above.   Here is the before picture of our kitchen.  Ignore that my husband makes an appearance in one of the befores- he just so happens to be in the EXACT same view of the after too!  LOL- taken four months later.. 

-Note that last photo we'd already moved in and primed the cabinets for paint-

Notice the wall paper, the blah-ness of the island, and the countertops (which were in HORRIBLE shape). Oh, and the single lonely can light above the sink. I specifically say notice the wallpaper because after ripping those tons of layers off, we ended up having to repair and retexture the drywall.  What a pain!

 After many months of hard work, (and saving for new countertops -whew those were pricey - for budget minded us), this is our after!

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Like Layla and Kevin's kitchen at The Lettered Cottage, I carried the beadboard over as the backsplash.  Boy was that a money saver!  The whole backsplash behind the L portion of the kitchen was only $20 since we managed to fit it all from a single sheet of beadboard.  I found the same corbels that they used, purchased at Home Depot, and used them to give the cabinets more of a furniture and higher end look.  I didn't specifically set out to COPY their corbels, its just that all the other ones were too country or too embellished- so not me.  These were perfect.  :)

After much thought (on my end.. my husband didn't really care one way or the other, :p)  we ended up nailing beadboard directly to the soffet above the cabinets and finishing off with various sizes of trim.  The flat part in the middle of the beadboard is actually the flat, back side of the beadboard.  Pretty nifty, eh?

My FIL and husband installed two more can lights over the island, which I love. They're placed so that if we later want to switch them out to pendants, then we can. The cabinets were painted Valspar's Lincoln Cottage Black and distressed to show some of the primer. The knobs are simple satin nickel that came in a contractor's pack from HD. The bin pulls are also satin nickel from HD, and I managed to find them for around $3 each.

There's that hubby I warned you about.  ;) 

The countertops were our biggest expense.  They are New Venetian Gold granite and were around $2000.  Considering that we saved money everywhere else, we felt justified spending that much.  Plus, we were able to snag a pretty good deal on them.   We do still plan on getting glass front doors for the opening to the left of the microwave. The ones on the right we'll leave open.

We upgraded the island with more beadboard, higher baseboards, and lots and lots of trim.  We also added sawed down corbels for the look they give, and to help support the added weight of the granite. 

I love my DEEP undermount sink (would have loved a farmhouse, but man they are expensive!).  I also love the curtains, but much like a lot in this house, they happened on accident.  When I was painting all of the door faces, I painted ALL of them black, not thinking about how the two on the island were supposed to remain white.  Laziness struck and instead of stripping off the paint and starting over, I decided to make curtains for under the sink.  Okay, so yeah, I'm a bum, who cares?  haha. I think they're really cute.  The fabric came from pre-made curtains from Wal-Mart that I cut up and used randomly around the house.  I love the navy with the aqua and the gold stripe.

We still need to move our stainless fridge from my inlaw's barn, and get a new dishwasher.  For right now the cash cow has been drained, so it might be a while on the new dishwasher. 

The tiles behind the sink are simple white subway tiles, and embellished subways.  The faucet was a mega bargain at Home Depot - only $108.  Anyone who has priced faucets lately knows how great of a deal this is.  I don't remember the brand, but as of yesterday (roaming through researching bath faucets) they were still in stock.

That's it!  Thanks for taking the time to 'tour' our kitchen.  I've had a lot of fun finding inexpensive accessories to finish it out, and can't wait to post about that in the next few days.

Linking up to:

http://www.inthefunlane.com/2010/08/fresh-coat-friday_19.html

Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch.