Our $1000 Complete Kitchen Remodel

Our kitchen has needed remodeled since we moved into our house 7 years ago, but honestly we just didn't have the extra thousands of dollars laying around. A girlfriend of my was remodeling her kitchen (that in my opinion didn't need remodeled) and told me I could have her "old" cabinets. After I convinced my hubby that this was a fantastic idea, we hit the road. To see the cabinets in her kitchen click here.  

And now for the big reveal

(unless you saw these on Facebook months ago) 

 BEFORE

Ugly brick back splash that attracted dirt etc, old chipped counter tops, old original 1959 cupboards with at least 7 layers of paint (only 1 by us), pergo flooring that NEVER looked clean, beige walls and bead board. 

 

 AFTER

New tile backsplash, new counter tops, larger spacious cabinets, new tile flooring, freshly painted gray walls and new board and batten on the walls.

 Lovely brick backsplash that attracted everything because it wasn't smooth. The bricks on this side are a lot closer together than the other side. (PS Ignore the cluttery refrigerator)

 

 Brick was replaced with tiles and we put new trim around the window

My always-looks-dirty pergo

 

 Pergo was replaced with ceramic tile

 My old in wall oven. It was Mary Kay pink when we moved in until we painted it with appliance paint.

 We replaced the cook top and in wall oven with a regular stove and will also be replacing the refrigerator soon.

 Lovely brick on the wall. On the opposite side of the kitchen the brick was really close together, but who ever did it must have been running low on brick so they spaced them farther apart. The microwave was also so low that I had a hard time fitting larger pans and pressure cookers on my stove.

 Bricks were replaced with tile, cook-top was replaced with a stove and much larger cabinets for more storage

 These cupboard doors were so old and had so much paint on them that they wouldn't close all the way...so annoying and ugly.

My cupboard doors stay closed AND the sink is actually centered with the window. Before the right side of the sink was lined up with the right side of the window.

 This was my biggest spot of counter top and it wasn't very big. I also had to have an extra cabinet (on the right) for dishes etc because I didn't have enough cupboard space.

 We extended the counter tops so I have more counter space and a more discrete place for my garbage can

Two small sections of counter space

One larger section of counter space

Extra cabinet for needed storage

My garbage can use to be at the end of the kitchen by the top of the stairs and always in the way

Special Features of my old kitchen that will be dearly missed:

(did you pick up on my sarcasm?)

We would have to open the cupboards above it so everything in them wouldn't melt. So ridiculous and a fire hazard!

The fronts of the drawers were always falling off. For the past few years we would nail them and then putty and paint over it so you couldn't see the nail-heads, but we finally just gave up and didn't care

The huge gaping hole about the dishwasher. Pretty sexy right?

Chipped cupboards. Do you think it could pass as shabby chic? Lol

 Behind the Scenes

This started the Friday before Father's Day. I had no idea what Cody had planned until he started the demo. I had less than an hour to get everything out of my kitchen. It did not happen in an organized fashion at all

Counter tops gone!

Paul (my brother) wasted not time breaking my hammer ; )

Half gone

Layers of flooring:

Layer 1: Pergo

Layer 2: Carpet (yes carpet)

Layer 3: Linoleum (that actually had a really cute pattern to it but was otherwise ugly) 

Layer 4: LOTS of Glue

Layer 5: The original hardwood floors (covered in glue)

The kitchen later that night

Cody and Paul removing the brick.

We are assuming the black if from a previous kitchen fire???

The view from my front lawn Saturday morning. Cody had me awake and loading old cupboards to haul off before we even had breakfast (and he thinks I'm a slave driver!)

New sheet rock on the walls and underlayment on the floor

Each board had to have a total of 54 screws!! That's a lot of screws. Cody's hands were so sore by the end of the night from driving hundreds of screws.

Tile Time!

Our super awesome neighbor Spencer came over almost every night for two weeks to help Cody

Gavin loved to sit and watch

Cutting tile

Oliver came over and helped with the grouting

My awesome floor!

The only problem was we couldn't walk on it for 24 hours. Our bedroom is in the basement which is only accessible from the kitchen so we would have to go out the front door, down the sidewalk and through the garage to go to bed and/or back upstairs.

My parents had almost an entire bag of grout left over so we were testing it to see if it would work. Unfortunately it didn't.

It's starting to look like a kitchen!

We obviously had to do some retrofitting to make the cabinets fit our kitchen. We did a lot of mapping, erasing, re-mapping, re-measuring, re-arranging, but after putting all of our heads together (Mine, Cody's, Spencer's, Chet's, etc) we got them how we wanted them.

In the meantime this is what my living room looked like and the entire house was covered with a fine layer of dust from the construction.

My refrigerater was between my front door and my sofa

Once we got the table out of the living room and back into the dining room it became the dumping ground for everything!! Paint, tools, paper goods, etc. (PS- Having anything on my table except a decorative bowl or flowers drives me nuts!!! You can imaging how crazy this was driving me)

Gavin tuckered out after a day of helping daddy. 

He's wearing daddy's Hilti glasses

Liz came over to make sure Cody got my sink back in properly!

One of the many trips to Lowe's

Trimwork

When we took down the bead board in the kitchen we decided to do it in the dining room too and just have board and batten in both places

The backsplash!

It was actually really easy agreeing on flooring, counter tops and back splash which was surprising to both of us, but we aren't going to complain

Paul and Erin came over and helped us

Erin was drying the wall so the men could put up the trim ; )

Dishwasher!!

Did I mention I did the backsplash all by myself?!? I have never tiled a thing in my life, but I've watched Cody do our bathroom, my parent's front entryway, and our kitchen/dining room so I figured "see one, do one" right?

This was before the grouting, caulking, etc. but I jut want to point out my serious tile cutting SKILLZ! Check out the cream/clear tile(the "L" shaped one) around that window trim! See how snug that fits? I cut that...by myself...while Cody was at work after I taught myself how to even use the tile saw!  Boo-yah!! I have a new talent! ; )

Trim work

I stained the wood too, other than that I was just on the clean up crew

We inherited this picnic table from my girlfriend Chelsea just in the nick of time because we had no kitchen to eat in! We ate out there everyday, multiple times a day.

Close up of the floor. It has grays and browns in it so I was able to do my walls gray how I wanted, but all the brown tones blended in as well.

I was so excited I actually got to put things in my cupboards and drawers I had to take a picture and sent to everyone I knew!! Ok not everyone, but a lot of people. 

We started this crazy project on June 13th and "finished" on July 7th just in time for my girlfriends going away party I was hosting. 24 days!!! Cody came home from work everyday...everyday people...and did something to the kitchen. It was a long hard process when you are still trying to work and live your life at the same time. I'm glad we did it, but I'm so glad we are done!! (We still need to paint the ceiling, ugh! and put up one more piece of trim, and touch up a few spots with paint, but those are minor).

Special Thanks To:

Spencer for helping everyday for two weeks 

Chet for the electrical

Oliver for helping with the grouting

Liz, Chelsea and Shannon for making us home cooked meals

Paul and Erin for demolition, painting and trim work

Karen for helping me get everything put back together and organized so I didn't have a complete meltdown and end up in Blackfoot South (the mental hospital)