I took a much needed break from construction on the Main Street house for a month. November is off-season at Diane's Guest House, so I blocked off the entire month to complete repairs there, schedule routine upkeep, decorate for the house for the holidays and take a vacation from living in a construction zone. I moved myself and the dogs over to vacation rental and enjoyed a few weeks reprieve. I then flew to Arizona to spend Thanksgiving week with Matt and Leah, enjoying the mild weather, great company, and even a little construction project, helping Matt and Leah install some new kitchen cabinets at their house.
I came back refreshed and ready to hit it hard, anxious to move out of the camp kitchen in the basement. My number one goal was to get the kitchen functional. There were additional cabinets that I had ordered from the RTA Cabinet Store to assemble, then hang and install. I needed to make shelves and install the pull-out drawers in the pantry. Once all the cabinets were hung and my temporary countertops laid down, the plumber would need to be scheduled to hook up the garbage disposal, dishwasher and connect the kitchen faucet.
The finishing touches before I moved into the kitchen was to trim out the windows and door, install the kick-plates and floor trim, then caulk and paint the trim. The kitchen is still a work in progress with several projects to be completed, such as quartz countertops when I can save up enough. Subway tile will installed to the ceiling on the window wall, then crown molding along the ceiling and above the wall cabinets, light fixtures and décor. Even though the kitchen isn't completely finished, I am thrilled to have running water and an oven.
Sometimes when I feel like progress is going too slow, it's good to look back and see what the kitchen looked like before. Today I'm posting a series of before and after pictures showing the progress made so far and the progress I've made in the last couple of weeks. I can't tell you how happy I am to have moved into the kitchen!
The view of the original kitchen facing towards the living room. The door on the far left is the stairway to the basement.
The new kitchen facing towards the living room, now an open floorplan. One of the changes that I made to the original kitchen design was to add a breakfast bar at the end of the run of cabinets, offering a separation between the kitchen and dining/living room area and a welcome break to the galley style kitchen. The addition of a couple bar stools will give guests a place to sit and visit while preparations are being made in the kitchen.
The original kitchen before the stairway was taken out.
The new kitchen, utilizing the space that used to be the stairway for the pantry, built-in refrigerator, a bank of drawers, microwave and upper cabinets.
Original kitchen facing to the back door.
The new kitchen facing the back door. I used 12" wide upper cabinets as lowers on the left wall in order to add storage and a countertop serving space to the kitchen without taking up to much width in the narrow kitchen. I also used uppers as lowers for the breakfast bar. To make an upper into a lower, add a 4" base to a 30" upper, making them the standard 34" counter height.
There's no before picture for the next photo, because there wasn't a pantry in the old kitchen.
The pantry turned out to be one of the most difficult challenges in the kitchen design and as a well-known food hoarder, a delight every time I open it up.
Because we lost 4 1/2" once we decided to fur in the outside walls and I had already taken measurements and ordered the cabinets, the pantry cabinets would not fit in the space. My son, Matt came up with the idea of cutting the back, top and bottom sections of the pantry pieces and then reconnecting them with reinforcements, glue and small brad nails. It turned out perfectly and the cabinet went together like a dream, thanks to Matt's articulate measurements and perfectionism.
The pantry went from two 18" cabinets to one 30" wide, so new shelving needed to be cut from 24" wide melamine to fit the new 30" wide cabinet. I ordered 30" wide pullout trays from the RTA Cabinet Store and installed them on the bottom three shelves for baking supplies and canned goods.
The pantry doors also needed to be cut down to fit the new cabinet.
I still need to do some finish work on the doors, but they came out great and fit perfectly on the new pantry. Taking exact measurements, I made the initial cut right along the edge of the cabinet trim using the table saw and then removed the 3" needed to reduce the door size to fit the 30" wide cabinet. I then put a bead of glue along one edge and used a Kreg Jig to drill holes and used screws to attach the two parts of the cabinet doors and clamped them overnight. The newly resized doors feel as strong as the original and as soon as the finish work is completed, I doubt the repair will be visible.
Almost just as important as seeing the progress of the kitchen from it's original to what it is today, is to look back at my vision board photo. For me, a creation always starts with a vision and a dream. My dream is within reach!