House Tour Part One: The Kitchen

Before you start, don't forget to enter in my first give away!

When the hubs and I first bought our home, we both decided that the first project on our very long list of things to do was to redo the bathrooms. They were old, unattractive, and just plain unsanitary. We knew the kitchen would have to be done as well, but there just wasn't a budget for that type of job.

Enter our friend Carrie. Carrie and her husband Adrian closed on their condo on our one week houseiversary. We went over to see their place and were floored. Her kitchen had just undergone a major and expensive renovation. It was phenomonal. After a great night toasting Carrie and Adrian's new home, the hubs and I came home to our kitchen, looked at each other, and decided we would be heading to Lowes the following day to order cabinets.

You see, it wasn't that we were just jealous of Carrie's amazing kitchen aesthetic appeal (which we were), it was also the fact that her kitchen was clean and functional. In our kitchen, we had to wash dishes as we took them out of the cupboards. Think I'm exaggerating? Here's a peak inside:

I'm not sure which was worse- dirty blue cabinet or dirty blue cabinet plus peeling dirty wallpaper. Bon Appetit!

Now, as I said before, it wasn't just sanitary reasons that expedited our need for a new kitchen. It was  just plain old ugly and outdated. Think early 90's, copper range hood, older than dirt appliances and laminate everything:

Our kitchen not only harbored dirt and burned our corneas, but it also was completely cut off from the rest of the home. At the time, this was probably a great thing. Out of sight, out of mind. But, with a new kitchen coming, we wanted to try and make it more open to the house.

This is the wall across from the cabinets. It was lined with shelves across it's entire length. Where hubs and our pixelated inspector are pictured was a small table.

Ready for the reveal? After 4 weeks, help from some very talented friends, and discovering a dead mouse in the wall (good thing I wasn't there that day) here's what we did:

With friends, we hung new cabinets, installed the hardware, laid a new ceramic floor, added a tile black splash, traded out the copper hood for a microwave range, and painted (two times- hated the first color). I love our new kitchen and am so proud that we did much of it ourselves.

We did hire some professionals to help with big stuff like move and add electrical outlets, install the dishwasher (it was free installation chaching!) deliver the stove (also free- bam!) and install the granite (got a super deal!)

I have saved the best for last though! Remember how I told you our kitchen was cut off from the rest of the house and showed you the wall of shelves? Now that we had a kitchen we loved, we wanted to be able to see it at all times. My brilliant hubs had the idea to cut a pass through and breakfast bar from the kitchen into the living room. I was nervous about it at first but the hubs was right:

I love how we now have access to the kitchen from the living room and vice versa. What made it even better was that we had enough extra granite from our slab to cover the bar. We eat at our table often and when we have friends over for a casual meal, the boys usually sit at the breakfast bar and the girls are at the table. It works for us!

And that's how we turned a disgusting (there, I said it) kitchen into one that's well...not disgusting. Stay tuned for the next part of our tour when I show you the downstairs bathroom. Get ready for groovy baby blue 1960's tile...Saweet!