Originally, it was honey colored oak cabinets with faux wood grain laminate counters. You know, like every house built in the 80s. When we bought the house, the previous owners had painted the entire dining room and kitchen walls burnt orange, and had painted the outside trim of the cabinets dark brown. It was actually worse than it's original state.
Excuse the mess. I don't have the true before pictures, but do you really need to see more?
I love DIYing. However, I was nervous about redoing an entire kitchen. Since kitchens are so important, I didn't want to do it wrong. So I hired a "professional." In this case, exchange professional for criminal. $4000 later, they left my kitchen even worse, if you can imagine that. No doors or drawers on the cabinets, and everything was the wrong color.
I don't have any full kitchen pictures of it in this state, but here are some close-ups.
That was their finished product. Long story short, we were out a kitchen and out of money. FIVE YEARS LATER, I finally got over my spite and empty bank account, and we decided to start again. Yes, I lived with no drawers or doors for 5 years. I like to keep it klassy. ;-) Since I live in an, ahem, budget friendly house, I didn't want to spend $20k or more on updating the kitchen. We originally ordered the Home Depot in-stock cabinets.
About half way through the installation, I realized these cabinets were not going to work. They were literally falling apart before we even got them installed.
Home Depot rocked my socks off, and returned the cabinets! We had to spent about $1000 more, but we got some upgraded cabinets. This most recent remodel started October 16, 2011. I had a completely gutted kitchen until December 6 of last year. Months of no sink, no cabinets, no counters ... nothing. This was due mostly to having to return cabinets and special order the new ones. Also partly due to someone who-shall-remain-nameless not wanting to get off his ass and work on the kitchen.
I will say, the wait was worth it. I'm going to call it and say ... drum roll please ... my kitchen is complete!! There are still a few minor details, and yes these are iPhone pictures from midnight last night. However, this is probably the only time my kitchen will be this organized and together again. Toddler and all, ya know?
Is it my dream kitchen? No. Is it a helluva lot better than I thought I'd ever have in this house? Yes. Are you ready for this? You are looking at a kitchen remodel that cost under $5000. I'm super proud of all the hard work that we put in. I'm proud to say I did that.
It's not bad to cook a meal in, either. ;-)
1 comment:
Sara!! I am so proud of you. And in AWE!! I can't believe you did this. It looks AMAZING! Great job on the backsplash!
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