New Kitchen

A vast majority of houses we looked at needed a kitchen makeover.  It became a common theme after touring a house and saying "we'll just paint the kitchen and it'll look great".  Oh how those words have such a deeper meaning now.  And I don't think I'll ever say them so nonchalantly ever again. 

Because when we bought our house, the kitchen looked like this:

It was dark.  And ringed of the 90's era when the house was built.  Plus the counter tops were cracked in several spots. The stove top only have 2 working burners.  And oh my goodness that floor was pretty disgusting.  We contemplated ripping that out as well. 

It even had one of those lovely florescent light fixtures that is popular in so many houses built during the 90's.  It did not help with the darkness of the room.  And coming from Alaska, I needed light.  And lots of it.  

So we got to work.  In two-ish weeks before the moving truck arrived, we (with much help from Matt's dad) painted the base cabinets, installed new counter tops, and replaced the back splash, got a new stove top, painted the walls and installed all new lighting.  And that was just in the kitchen.

One thing we didn't get to were the cabinet doors.  We worked our tails off to get the kitchen to a place where we could unpack and survive.  Doors and hardware were not part of that equation.  And then we got burned out...well, actually we had other projects to work on...so we lived with no doors for...um...two months??

And just a couple weeks before Christmas, we finally have doors up and hardware on!  I didn't think I'd ever see this day.

Remember before?

I love before and afters.  And now have such a better appreciation for "after".

My husband never ceases to amaze me in how he can just decide to tackle something and learn how to do it.  Like he did with electrical.  He learned when we remodeled our bathroom in Anchorage.  And now he's a pro.  What a blessing to be married to man with such handyman skills.

Thus, he installed some can lights and these beautiful pendants over the island.

Our beautiful new stove top - that has all working burners!  And that back splash.  I cannot take any credit on the installation of that, but am thankful for the men that can.  Because I love it.

My new paint color that took three coats.  THREE.  That was dreadful, but I love the end product.  It's bright but the rest of the kitchen and house are so neutral, that I love the pop of color.

You can kind of see the floors in the picture above.  After several hours of scrubbing the floor with Clorox and a toothbrush, they actually look clean and relatively new.  I'm glad we didn't have to replace them after all!

And another angle for your viewing pleasure...because the amount of work that went into this kitchen deserves a bazillion pictures.

We have these two glorious, huge windows by the sink.  They will one day get curtains, but for now, I'm enjoying all the sunlight.

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so it's an important room to me.  I love the brightness of it all.  And it was fun to pick out all the finishes.  However, I already told Matt, if we ever have to paint kitchen cabinets again, we will save and pay someone.  Or buy a house that's already completed.  If that last scenario is actually possible.

But for now, I'm loving the new kitchen.  And thankful for the opportunity to have such an amazing space.