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I am excited to finally be sharing with you my plans for the kitchen renovation I am about to take on at the house. If you follow along on social you will have seen that I have already started to renovate my kitchen. I recently bought a house in the past 10 months and have slowly been working room by room to put my stamp on it. I am just about finished with the bathroom renovations which I hope to share soon. I just hate painting moulding but who doesn’t?
Welcome to my current kitchen. At first glance it looks a little dated but not too bad right? Well I am going to take you for a closer look so we can ask why together. Why did these previous owners make such quirky decisions. Previous owners if you are reading this email me I’d love to ask you some questions and maybe stop reading here so I don’t offend you and your weird decisions.
So besides this oven sporadically heating to a different temperature than programmed looks pretty normal right? Well look again.
Thats right the microwave is over my head. In fact the door actually clears the top of my head. Granted I am short but NOT that short. When the previous owners hung the cabinets they hung the cabinets all the way to the ceiling. Between the microwave for the giant and the child sized toilet that was installed in the bathroom my Dad and I are just all around confused.
On to the most frustrating parts of this kitchen that initially led to the renovation is this HALF size dishwasher. That’s right it’s tiny. If you need to take one thing away from this take away that I despise doing dishes. Do you know how much more I have to run/load the dishwasher with it being this small? Having a dinner party, forget about it! Loading your pots and pans, nope!
So how did one dishwasher start a whole kitchen renovation? Well you can’t just add in a new larger size dishwasher. You have to move the cabinets over. Then you won’t have enough countertops to cover the cabinets. Then if your taking the countertops off you need to replace the backsplash and since you’re doing the counters why wouldn’t you replace the sink. And well if you are doing all that you might as well paint the cabinets. And before you know it you are redoing your whole kitchen.
Black sink, such a bad idea… Not much more to say is there? Oh yes there is. I don’t want you to think that I would EVER let my sink get as gross as this looks. These stains… ya I bought them with the house. It’s not because I didn’t clean my sink because this sink has seen a lot of bleach in the last 10 months!
Wow this back splash. What a combination of things. First off in general I am not the biggest fan of warm colors I prefer cooler tones like greys and blues. My brother actually has this same square tile in his bathroom so since I walked in it has just screamed bathroom to me.
Let’s take a closer look at the accent tile. It’s hard to tell from this picture but each tile is a different height giving it variation. Not only do they introduce black to this warm brownish kitchen but also some of those tiles are a stainless steel. I truly am happy to see this go.
And lastly I want to leave you with this gem. To tie in the black that was introduced in the accent tile the previous owner chose THESE handles…. need I even say more!
So what are my future plans with this kitchen you ask? I don’t have the budget to completely gut it so I am going to refresh the kitchen on a budget. Putting in a full sized dishwasher, remove the backsplash, add butcher block countertops, paint the cabinets white, tile the new backsplash, install a farmhouse sink with a new faucet and garbage disposal, replace the stove and microwave and lastly paint the whole kitchen. A lot to do right?
The kitchen renovation plan is good, but it needs a lot of money and time which is very difficult. I think holidays are the best time for renovations
Your example pictures look awesome, I definitely agree with you that cabinets are probably the most important renovation feature. Since they are so visible, the color and accent of the cabinets can really change how your kitchen is seen. remodeling can be an overwhelming experience and some times you need to set guidelines and goals thanks for sharing the article!