Before & After : Kitchen

This weekend we put some of the finishing touches on the kitchen in our summer house, so I think I'm ready to share pictures! Be forewarned...the "before" pictures are scary and the "during" pictures get even scarier. But I promise the "after" pictures make up for all of it!this is how the old owners had itwe knew we had an ugly kitchen to deal with...
with sloping floors and counter tops...
but we didn't know we had uninsulated, weak walls...
plus a really bad electrical situation.
lovely.on a whim, my dad and husband started pulling cabinets off the wallsthen they started on the counters and drywall
(notice the old windows that just got covered up in the walls!)
and before we knew it, it looked like this!
wait, where did the kitchen go???
I see empty walls and into the crawl space below, but no kitchen!it felt like it stayed like that for a really long time,
but finally we turned a corner and we got to start putting it back together
we used a combination of stock cabinets and custom built by my dad to get exactly what we needed. I wanted open shelves above and my dad built those as wellmy dad and I installed the marble tile back splash.
I had never tiled before and have always wanted to try it out
~
and finally, the finished product!
hey Abi, notice what's on the wall!This was a major DIY project. We hired out the electrical, had a friend of my dad's help with plumbing, and my Uncle helped install the counter tops. Outside of that, it was all me, Eric and my dad. But mainly my dad, there's no way in a million years we could have pulled this off without him!
~
I love every last bit of it and I can honestly say it turned out exactly how I envisioned. I also loved being able to try things in this kitchen that I might not have done in my every day kitchen including all open shelves above and a microwave installed below the counter. And after spending two weekends at the house now, we know the kitchen is actually very functional and meets our needs really well.

The Lettered Cottage


4 comments:

Sincerely Abi said...

Amazing! You did such a wonderful job transforming the kitchen! It has to be so satisfying to see how far the house has come! Thanks for posting this before and after.

Lei said...

You totally brought it up to date. It looks much bigger and so much fresher. great job!

gail myrepurposedlife.net said...

beautiful! I love the open shelving! I bet it still makes you smile every time you walk in there!
working on my kitchen. It's more of a mini makeover, but not sure if I'll ever be finished!
gail

Caroline @ Atelier Caroline said...

Great redo. Your pictures remind me of my kitchen redo which lasted the better part of the summer of 2007 with a toddler in the house. Great to have such a handy dad that helped with the cabinets

Caroline
http://ateliercaroline.blogspot.com