Kitchen From the Start to Now

Today I want to show you how far our kitchen has come. Now, if you’re thinking, “Hey, that kitchen doesn’t look so bad.” Well, it’s because this is the after. The before, let’s just say if you scare easily, you might want to avert your eyes for these next few photos.

Now, I want to start off by saying this is not what this kitchen looked like when my grandmother lived here. It obviously didn’t look like a tornado rolled through it. She moved in with another family member to help with for the last year before she passed so things were a little disheveled. Add on top of that that my aunt so graciously went out to the house to start the packing & cleaning process and somehow this disaster was created. She to this day says she had a method to her madness, but O.M.G. it was a mess!

After she came back and finished the job we cleared out everything and the fun work started. And when I say fun, I mean the pretty stuff. 🙂 The first step was taking down the vent hood and the 2 uppers on the right side of the kitchen. Now, some said I was crazy at this point to take away perfectly good storage. I had a vision for the kitchen though from the moment we decided to take on this remodel. Next was to remove the cabinet doors.

Next we cleaned all the cabinets VERY well. You would be surprised what kind of built up can happen over 27 years. We taped off the counter tops, dishwasher, & double wall oven. We, and by we I mean the hubs, sprayed everything with Kilz primer from Home Depot.

Kilz Primer- https://www.homedepot.com/p/KILZ-Original-5-gal-White-Oil-Based-Interior-Sealer-Primer-and-Stain-Blocker-10000/100371320

Next I ripped up the linoleum floors. These were just in the kitchen and had to go! Then went up the “shiplap”. My husband and I ripped down SO many sheets of underlayment plywood. It was tedious work and definitely time consuming, but the money we saved by doing it this way was worth it for us. On the ceiling we used 6″ tongue & groove boards. These were super easy to work with and I loved the end result.

Underlayment Sheets- https://www.homedepot.com/p/Underlayment-Common-7-32-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-Actual-0-196-in-x-48-in-x-96-in-431178/203183010

Pine Tongue & Groove- https://www.homedepot.com/p/1-in-x-6-in-x-8-ft-Pine-Board-Pattern-Tongue-and-Groove-168WP4ECB/304235512

In case you can’t already tell, my hubs is amazing and I am so incredibly grateful that he is willing to tackle anything. 🙂 This next step was the biggest change yet, and where I saw it start to come to life. We painted EVERYTHING in the color Shiplap by Magnolia Home Paint but because we don’t have a retailer near us (that I know of) we had it mixed in Behr’s Premium Plus Ultra in Semi-Gloss.

Next was installing the floors & I just want to say I LOVE these floors. I gave so much thought to this decision. At our last home we bought we couldn’t afford to replace the flooring so we were stuck with a terrible, cheap orange laminate. Now, I am not against laminate at all. I think there are some great ones out there, but this one in particular was awful. It chipped, it buckled, and if a drop of water touched it it would swell up.

With our new floors I had one requirement, they had to be WATERPROOF. With a toddler that likes to throw his sip cup, flip it upside down, and lets not even get started on the messes that are to come during potty training, I knew this was a must have. I found the Lifeproof brand at Home Depot & it checked off everything in my book. It’s durable, it’s waterproof, and its scratch resistant. We went with the color Essential Oak and it is perfect.

Lifeproof Flooring in Essential Oak- https://www.homedepot.com/p/LifeProof-Essential-Oak-7-1-in-x-47-6-in-Luxury-Vinyl-Plank-Flooring-18-73-sq-ft-case-I170263L/300886748

I added trim, built my open shelving, annnnd here we are now. My Winter kitchen. My goodness that was longer than I thought it would be!

If you’re still here reading this, just know that I love you & you’re amazing! Thank you so much for being here today & learning a little bit more about our journey. I appreciate it more than you could imagine. If you have any questions for me you can leave them down below, and don’t forget that you can always find me on Instagram.