I’ve been waiting to be able to post this for about 3 years. The time has finally come, and I’m beyond excited. It’s like a whole new world for us in our house. When we moved in almost four years ago, we knew that we would completely change the kitchen. We had to. See for yourself.
Our house was built in 1959, but it looks like they tried to do some “updating” sometime in the late 70s or early 80s. The stove was from the 80s, and the refrigerator was from the mid 90s. We immediately pushed the stove out to the trash, but we had to keep the refrigerator until, well, just about 2 weeks ago. So basically what we have here are some light wood grain laminate cabinets with butter yellow countertops AND backsplash. They actually continued the laminate up the wall..
Check out the lovely hardware. We decided quickly that we had to take action. We immediately started taking doors off.
Ok, so the doors came off, and the laminate peeled off easily. Here’s what we had to deal with on the inside; nightmarish yellow contact paper with what appeared to be molasses spilled on it. Yes, more yellow. This was extremely difficult to remove.
…And there’s more. I almost killed myself trying to take this stuff off.
Here are the upper cabinets once the contact paper was removed. Ok, we’re making progress now.
And then there was THIS! Yikes! It was bad. Sooo bad.
Ok, the contact paper is finally off here, and we were able to move on.
But first, a little overview of the chaos. So scary.
So here everything is cleaned and sanded. Time to remove the “backsplash”!
If I only knew what was lurking behind that yellow mess…
Don’t be jealous. Here we have some lovely petrified glue. Great. We also have screws sticking up from the countertop from where we removed the backsplash. Fun.
Absolutely gross. We had to sand and clean this immediately.
After we sanded the glue and prepared the backsplash, I painted the interiors with enamel paint. I wanted it to be super durable. It actually turned out great. Nice and clean.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
So back to THIS problem. We actually lived with these for about a year (or so). Then we stumbled upon some quartz, yes QUARTZ countertops for $100 on good ole Craigslist. Kelly had to pay to have it cut for our new sink, etc., but it was still a great deal, and they were exactly what we wanted. I was SO excited when it was time to get rid of these old countertops.
And the old sink/faucet are gone!!
Old countertops gone!
Kelly working his magic.
Here are the new countertops, but we had to continue to live, so here’s what our kitchen looked like for the last, ohhh, two years. Every time someone would come over, I would apologize for the kitchen situation and made sure to tell them that it wasn’t permanent.
So much stuff. Too much stuff. Finally, about a month ago, we were able to finish the kitchen. We hired a local cabinet maker and he resurfaced our existing cabinets and made new doors and drawers. But first, it was time for me to purge! Boy, did that feel great. I took everything out of the cabinets and deep cleaned the interiors. I got rid of so much stuff…
Now it’s time for a new makeover.
But first, we changed our view with a brand new window!
Whoa. Where am I? Here’s the new space after the cabinets were done. We chose a laminate due to durability and easy maintenance. The color we chose was Columbian Walnut. We also chose some nice modern stainless steel hardware. We were VERY happy with the results, but there’s more!
Now that the cabinets were done, it was time to install the backsplash and under cabinet lighting. Kelly was up for the challenge…
NOW we’re talkin’! What a transformation.
A new refrigerator! Now we’re living in the lap of luxury! Seriously, I’m so happy with this new situation.
There’s my beautiful new window and windowsill. We found that pendant lamp at a thrift store a couple years ago. This was the perfect spot for it.
So there you have it. Honestly, after living with no cabinet doors and no drawers for almost four years, we were glad to have ANYTHING. It’s funny how you take those small things of convenience for granted. Sometimes we just walk out to the kitchen, stand there, and stare. It’s completely life changing. We feel so fancy now.
Anyway, my apologies for the super long post. It’s probably the longest one EVER, but I needed to do it that way in order to show the entire process. It took a long time to finish this, but it was so worth the wait. We’re already planning another project, so I’ll be back to share that too. Have a great week, everyone!
Last year we decided to finally get that George Nelson pendant lamp we’ve always wanted. We went with the small saucer version of the bubble lamps, and we couldn’t be happier. I know it’s a very popular mid-century lamp, but when something’s good, it’s good. Anyway, we were very excited to finally receive it. We had been living with an off-center drum shade, which drove me crazy. This one is perfect, and we are done with the dining room lighting. Now, onto the next project!
Kibster Vintage 