Getting Things Cooking In The Kitchen

Our kitchen makeover is officially underway!  As I mentioned in my last post, we wanted to make our existing solid wood cabinets work better for us.  They are solid wood and still have a lot of life left in them, so it doesn't make sense for us to get rid of them.  But we could change them up a bit to make them the best they can be.  The first step in reworking the cabinets was to remove the gigantic microwave shelf and the appliance garage.  We hoped ditching these two things would open things up a bit and provide us with more countertop work space. 

So Adam and my dad got to work on tearing out the microwave shelf and appliance garage.  The appliance garage came out pretty easily after removing some trim around it.  The microwave shelf required a bit more muscle.  All the banging intrigued Archer and Lyla, while Jazzy didn't particularly care for it.  Adam and my dad took the bottom of the shelf off and then Adam managed to cut off the sides in a nice neat line.  Our plan is to possibly add some corbels and trim around the cut portions to help finish off the raw edge of the cut part.  And of course we'll be painting the cabinets, which will help it look more finished. 

Even with just tearing some things out of the kitchen, it already looks so much better!  It looks bigger and more spacious.  And there's more useable countertop space.  It's amazing how a simple change can make such a big difference!  Check out the before and after below: 

You might also notice we got our over the range microwave installed too!  And by we I mean Adam and my dad.  I did absolutely nothing to help.  My mom and I took the kids out to lunch and when we got back it was already installed!  They did have some electrical issues to figure out, but luckily my dad is an electrical engineer.  And Adam's gotten quite a bit of electrical experience under his belt from doing other projects around our house.

Getting rid of our microwave shelf meant we needed to find a new home for our microwave.  We didn't want to use precious countertop space, so we opted for an over the range model.  I was slightly worried it would impede on the stove top, but the low profile model we chose still allows plenty of space.  It doesn't take up any more space than the hood did.  It works perfectly for our kitchen. 

The next step in our kitchen remodel process was to nail down the countertops and backsplash tile.  We are happily hiring out these two tasks and both should be completed by mid-December.  We decided on a very pretty gray and white dolomite for the countertops and a gorgeous blueish/greenish/grayish scallop tile for the backsplash. 

Getting the backsplash tile proved to be quite the scavenger hunt.  I originally saw the tile at Home Depot.  The company that is installing our countertops and backsplash said they could order the same tile directly from the distributor.  Luckily the designer working with us thought to order a sample of the tile to make sure it's the same as the tile I saw at Home Depot.  It turns out that it is similar but not quite the same.  The original tile we saw is more even in the color tones.  The sample tile that was ordered had a little more variance with the colors.  So if we wanted the original tile, we would need to get it from Home Depot. 

Of course our local Home Depot didn't have enough sheets of the tile.  We looked online at several other Home Depots and one about 45 minutes from was supposed to have 80 sheets.  We figured that would be our best bet at getting enough of the tiles in the finish we liked best.  Well, it turns out there was a combination of the two styles of tiles at that store.  They were very similar, but you could tell they were different when they were side by side.  Adam and I decided that since we were paying so much money for this project, we wanted it to be done right.  So we went to several other Home Depots and rounded up all of the tiles available in the Kansas City area.  Then we sorted them into the two different types in our family room.  We were able to get enough of the original tile we liked.  So we returned the other set of tile.  Whoever ends up buying that tile really owes us for rounding up all of it in one place! 

Whew!  Luckily, getting our sink and faucet were far less complicated.  We just ordered both online from Home Depot and they were delivered right to our house.  We decided to get a single basin, stainless steel sink with an offset drain.  After reading some reviews of single basin sinks, we noticed a lot of people talking about issues with water not draining properly.  Hopefully getting a drain that is offset to one side will allow more of a slope for the water to run down.

I love the faucet we ordered!  It's very sleek and it has a matte black finish.  It was significantly less expensive than some of the other ones I was looking at because the brand is not as well known as some of the others out there.  But after doing some research, I found this model had good reviews and the brand itself seemed to have good reviews overall.

The sink, faucet, and backsplash tile are waiting in our basement for mid-December when it will all get installed!  I'm super excited for that step!  In the meantime, Adam is going to work on adding some trim detail to our cabinets.  Things are certainly moving along!