THE FINAL PRODUCT!!!

The light at the end of the tunnel

we are in the midst of tiling our floor, something I said I would never, ever, ever, ever do again. But here we are laying tile AGAIN. I will be glad when we are done. It looks good so far. We are still within budget, we saved 1200 dollars by doing it ourselves. We are going on day 3 of just laying the tile and cutting the pieces, I guess that's the 1200 dollar difference!

Within budget

I set out determined to do a kitchen remodel for 10k. We are doing it!

When the tile is all done, we will hit about 8500. That doesn't leave a whole lot for appliances, but that's not really the "kitchen",plus the only appliance we need are a fridge and stove. We kept our Bosch dishwasher and got a cool LG microhood for only $200. We will be fine though. So much for thinking I might have any money left over....

Granite, anyone?

So, we've got this big ol' slab left over. We had to buy more than we needed in order to get the island countertop. So now we have this big, 50 x36 inch remnant leftover of granite! Oh, and here's also a closeup of the countertop, it's hard to see in the other photos.



I tried "Craigslisting" it for about 250 I think, but no one's been interested so far. I don't really blame them, what's someone going to do with some random piece of granite? I should actually just lower the price--it could be a cool bathroom vanity or something....

The faucet is in!

Omg, I never realized how much thought would go into choosing a kitchen sind FAUCET. There are so many choices out there! I mean, we went back and forth and forth and back trying to decide how much money to spend on one. Finally, we settled on this one:


It was a little bit on the pricier side, but it's fantastic. I really like it. It really makes a difference in washing big items such as pots and pans, etc.

Next, we have the floor. and wouldn't you know it----another snafu-the installer we're going with will only install on the subfloor, and guess what, we don't know if the bajillion layers of linoleum have any asbestos, so to the lab I'll be going this week. The sooner we get our floor done, the sooner I can get my appliances. Which means we'll be just in time for the labor day appliance sales.

Finally coming together

BEFORE:




AFTER:






I have so much counterspace!! we still have a little ways to go, hooking up the plumbing, the flooring, and then finally the appliances. By then, we should be pretty tapped out of our budget. but we did it on our small budget!

I am still also planning on doing a backsplash but that will have to wait. If there's any possibility of any money being leftover (highly doubt it, but maybe...), I will use that. I don't think it should cost very much anyway, so even if there's no "kitchen budget" money left, I still should be able to do it within the next couple of months.

I am so excited to have a new kitchen. I have waited so long! Cocktail parties this fall are going to be even better than ever.

Cabinets!

we still have some trim work to do around the cabinets, but the biggest part is done!

Painting

So I bought a can of paint....turns out the "beige" turned out to be lemony yellow. Why did I get a GALLON???
(you can see the color on the walls.)
So, back to the store I went, and got what I thought was a warm khaky color....turned out to be sort of a dark brown/army green. NOT the look I was going for.... why again did I buy a gallon!!!
I wasn't sure I wanted to waste more money on paint, and then I realized that this would be the easiest paint job ever, without any cabinets, I wouldn't have to do any taping. And I realized that I would never be completely satisfied with the color.
so back to the store I went. I got a lighter shade of cocoa, it's actually called Cookie Crumb, and I think it looks nice( I don't have photos yet).

some photos of the floor

big pile of rubble
in the thick of it
taking a step backwards, seemingly. The old, raggedy two different vinyl tiles are now exposed. we get our cabinets installed this week.

The floor, the floor!

Removing the tile floor is a bigger job that what we anticipated. We got our cabinets, but they're just sitting in the middle of the living room until we can get the floor off. My lesson of the day: don't have a floor tiled unless you are sure that you want it like that FOREVER.








So now the cabinet installation is being delayed until the floor is out. And we are kind of strapped for time so now everything is set back. Removing tile is a big, big job!

Updates!

Things are shaping up quite nicely. So far, more has been "done" in my head than actually in the kitchen. But we now have set in place which countertops and sink we'll have, which colors, where things will go, paint colors, mouldings, but not so much the flooring. the floor will be the last thing, which if fine by me.

We found this fantastic place that sells granite wholesale and it looks like it actually WILL be in the budget. I am SO excited. We are trying to choose between a black countertop or a speckly brown .(see below).






Alot of it really has to do with the color appliances we will get, although we are strongly leaning toward the speckly brown (right) with black/SS appliances. In the photos, the granite on the left looks like brown in the light but it is actually black with highlights.



I am still in shock that we will even be able to afford granite. I was going to be satisfied with a synthetic solid surface formica (not the typical cheap formica, but a type that a solid block,made to look like granite).



In other news, I decided to remove the wall paneling on the east wall of the kitchen and have that look like a smooth wall the way it should. I was a little bit scared about removing the paneling because the wall is plaster and I thought that removing it with its adhesive would totally tear the wall up---and there would be another expense. However, we removed it, and there is virtually no damage. The main thing is removing the older -than-dirt wallpaper so that the contractor can patch it. we may even patch it ourselves. That's how minimal it is.


Below shows the soffit on the western wall totally removed (yay!) I looked at some kitchen magazines and discovered that crown moulding at the top of the soffit gives it a really, really newish and modern and stylish look, so that's what well do once we have started the painting process.



And remember the ceiling that had the ugly outdated cabinets we were so afraid of removing? Well the contractor is going to re-sheetrock it and make it look new and fabulous.

recent developments

this was a soffit that i had removed. this wall is just going to be a plain wall, with no cabinets, that i have wanted for a long time. it's right next to the back door and it was always awkward trying to exit out with cabinets right next to the door. it bugged me big time.

right now,the walls look like some patchwork quilt or something, with all different wallpapers and holes and drywall. soon,it will look very good, i am very excited.

also, we are staying on budget more than i had expected. we are right on track.

Still at it

A week later, and we're kind of.... well let's just say that the "excitement" has worn off a little. The demo part is going sort of slow. Mainly trying to figure out just WHAT we want to remove, so that we don't end up pulling something out and then regretting it later. And then I think we have this DIY mentality even though we're not really doing it all ourselves. So we reached a point where we thought, 'now what?' and then realized "duh....start the general contracting bids!"

So we've got someone coming over next week to give input on how we want to proceed with the walls and stuff.

Oh, and a major score saving money on getting rid of debris. We have been taking advantage of local neighborhood clean-ups where we can bring a truckload of crap for only $10, in comparison to $30 and up at the dump, or worse yet, renting a dumpster and paying those high fees.

More developments

These are photos of a long horizontal cabinet that the previous owners had put up. I wish that I had taken "before" photos of itbefore we had started the removal. It never really fit in with the traditional look of our dining room, but we always figured that it would be a huge mess to remove. Surprise surprise, if I had known how easy it was to remove and that it didn't leave a huge mess in the ceiling, I'd have removed it before.




more cabinet demolition. Soon, this will be gone and we wont have a sink for a while. That seems a little scary. I'll just have to make sure to hurry to get things done. A friend of mine who remodeled her kitchen said she used her bathtub to do dishes. I don't really want to go there, but if necessary, I guess it wont be so bad as long as I don't soak the dishes in the tub, but just simply use the water to run over the dishes. What a headache though.

Oh, and how our house stinks! When you walk in the door, immediately it smells like old, stinky, geriatric dust. It smells like an old persons house. I was thinking to maybe get some incense.

Phase 1: Free (fun) demolition

This is really exciting. I was worried we would run into a pandora's box type of situation but so far, so good. The part that makes me really happy is that the demo is free, since we're doing it ourselves. We setup a makeshift kitchen in the dining room and we're being really organized about it. Here are some photos:

Here's our makeshif kitchen and the start of the cabinet removal

check out that 60's- circa wallpaper! Bye bye, nasty faux-brick!

My husband, who's doing the demo, had to get in the photo.

Stay tuned!

The start of something beautiful

I hope we know what we're doing. I'm so scared that this is going to ba Pandora's box kind of thing.... The previous owners NAILED and GLUED the cabinets to the wall. Anyone who has done any research on installing cabinets knows you're supposed to SCREW them in!!!! Is it too late to back out?

what's the holdup?

okay, You're probably wondering why I haven't posted!! We are going to start pulling the old nasty cabinets down next week.

I am really apprehensive because once we start, we are committed, and I'm not sure what the total plan is just yet. I would like to just get all the cabinets down, make sure the walls are okay, and then put the cabinets down. One thing at a time.

Stay tuned!

Welcome!

Welcome to my outdated, dingy, outdated, dingy, dingy and outdated kitchen. In the next few months, I am hoping to have my dream (relatively speaking) kitchen. stay tuned!

here's one angle with the flash, and without. The flash, of course makes the kitchen look halfway decent. It's not though! The second photo is a truer reflection.

This is our stained, dingy so-called "rustic" wannabe tile. It's partly our fault that it looks so bad- we installed it ourselves as amateurs. I don't want to make the same mistake twice. Our new kitchen will be done PRO-FESS-ION-A-LLY!

this is probably the biggest thorn in my side. The previous owners put this nasty faux-brick up on the backsplash. We didn't know what to do in the beginning when we first bought the house, so we painted it white. what else could you do with it? But it's gross, and it's gonna be GONE!!! Yuck. I have nightmares about that nasty brick.

So, here we are. The first phase of course, is the demolition. I can't wait to get the old ugly cheap outdated cabinets off the wall. I will definitely post photos of that!

Coming soon!