Kitchen Changes

We have plans to basically remodel or rework everything in the house. We have been working slowly trying not to spend any money. Lately we have been transforming the kitchen. Now, I know that I have a rather decent sized kitchen but I am such a food storage addict that it seems totally dinky-small to me. I am constantly thinking about new ways to organize my stuff so that I can store more. Another funny thing about me is that I don't like to have stuff on the counters. pretty much at all. I don't mind cute containers of flour and sugar, but really I don't like anything else, although, out of necessity I do have more stuff on there. But anyway...

We’ve moved a lot of things around in the kitchen. We don't want to pay for new cabinets, besides the ones we have aren't that bad. They are plain but we have been moving them up and down a little to give it some sense of variety. Also, I am planning on painting them white and adding crown molding. Because of our self imposed budgetary confinements we have had to get a little creative.

When we ripped out the wall between the living room and kitchen we had to move the fridge to a new location, so, Justin actually cut two of our old cabinets (in the picture to the right of the oven) in half completely. Then he rebuilt the sides and moved the halves onto opposite edges of the kitchen.

Next, now I know this may scare a few people, so sorry if it does, but I do believe in strong cleaners so I am okay with it. Luckily, the cabinets in the bathrooms actually match the kitchen cabinets. Justin ripped apart the master bath cabinet and saved the face and doors ( we are replacing it with two sinks in the future). After that he rebuilt the most wonderful above the fridge cabinet! (in the pictures, the part where the drawers were will be covered with crown, just FYI) It is huge and I love it! We are actually going to have to do the same thing with the cabinets above the microwave and sink. We realized that in order to wrap the crown around all levels of the cabinets we need to have the higher ones brought out (or else the crown would block the doors from opening all the way). The good thing about this is it will add a little more storage space and honestly, in my mind, every inch counts.

The other thing we have finished in the kitchen is putting a pocket door leading into the laundry room which is a total miracle space saver for a house our size. We put up some shelves and brought a chest in to go under them (since we have no room for it anywhere else, and I won't get rid of it).

We now have new lighting over the table. It used to be a ceiling fan in the middle of the kitchen, weird. (We recycled the fan by repainting it, replacing the glass and putting it in our bedroom). I scraped and sanded the ceiling so that we no longer have the yucky popcorn texture. That is such a back breaking job! I am so glad it is over!

***A funny little Justin Kmetzsch family fact- We look back through the pictures of our remodeling projects and get sick over thinking about how much work it took to get our house looking nice, BUT it is so rewarding we just keep putting ourselves through it willingly, I guess it just shows we're CRAZY)

In the near future we are planning on moving the dishwasher to the left hand side of the sink, because if anyone is cooking , you can't do any dishes, or you'll trip and fall over the open dishwasher (very bad design). When we move the washer we will install a new sink, faucet, and garbage disposal. Also centering the sink with the window it is off right now and is really annoying. We are planning on putting in wood floors so we have to raise the base cabinets about a half inch, (which will happen when we start to move around the dishwasher. Then new counter tops, under-cabinet lighting and paint and about a million other things.

The other thing we have finished in the kitchen is putting a pocket door leading into the laundry room which is a total miracle space saver for a house our size. Other than that we put up some shelves and brought a chest in to go under them (since we have no room for it anywhere else, and I won't get rid of it).

So I guess I will add the pictures now. Hope you enjoy!

Laundry room door, and old wall between living room and kitchen.

View of cabinets, to the right of oven, these are the ones that Justin cut in half.

This was our Christmas dinner, I put it in because I forgot to take
a picture of the wall and this shows where the fridge used to be.

You can also see the wall paper that used to be in the kitchen.

This is the before picture for the fridge cabinet was installed.

This is Justin, taking out the old cabinet front.

Justin installing the cabinet that he built out of the old cabinet face.

The cabinet installed, and it also shows the scraped ceiling.
Before the lights were installed.

The trunk and the shelves that we put up.

This shows the wall gone and the new pocket door that we moved to the right.
Also some of the wall colors. The cabinets will be white.