Kitchen - Part 2

And onwards with the renovations: 

This is his favorite (nope)

Stephen's favorite: drywall!

Andy and Stephen worked hard one Saturday morning to put up all the brand new cabinets (from Cabinet Giant here in KC). 

Look: a normal wall! 

Channeling Dexter. 

Sanding: Stephen's other favorite...nope. 

That space? Yeah, it's for a real dishwasher. 

 After looking at what seemed like a million laminate countertops, and not being able to afford solid surface counters, we settled on tile. Luckily, we found this awesome grey textured floor tile at Lowe's and used that.

Tile. Not linen. 

Where there used to be a dishwasher, there is now a cabinet!

Adding the cabinet under the window was one of the best decisions we made!

Stephen also added cabinets above the stove and fridge. 

We'd always planned on using subway tiles for the backsplash, and we found a great deal on mosaic-style ones that made the job go much quicker for Esteban.

We used the same grey in the hall as our bedroom and bathroom.
We had some left over and thought it would be a good neutral. 

Look at that gorgeous shiny wall! 

Having an above the range microwave is wonderful. 

Look! Real drawers!!

Meanwhile, I printed off labels on sticker paper. 

Yup. Love it. 

To be continued (just once more)

Kitchen - Part 1

Well this is a little behind schedule, but that seems to apply to the entire kitchen project. So let's begin, shall we? 

Before we moved in, we had a chance to do a few things (mainly prime and paint). 

Look at that pretty blue paint. 

The blues don't even match. 

Lovely sliding doors that frequently fell out.

Primed - thank goodness. 

Painted our cardboard color. 

Stove and dishwasher - both subpar. 

This was the week of the wedding, moving kitchen stuff in. 

Extra boxes and our "new to us" fridge. 

This was an exciting time. Our own kitchen! 

Mac and Cheese our first Christmas together! 

And then for three years we dealt with the annoying kitchen and focused on the rest of the house, knowing how much of a pain it would be. 

This is the dining room pre-kitchen renovation. Please note the right wall. 

The awkwardly small walkway from kitchen to dining room. 

The house came with this odd wall. 

Last winter we primed it, knowing we'd cut it down eventually. 

Stairway to the basement. 

This has been our kitchen since we moved in in 2009.

Trailer sized cabinets? Check. 

Here's the other side of the weird wall. 

And the disgusting space above the stairway. 

Please note moveable dishwasher. 

Here's the view from the living room into the kitchen. 

After Anya was gone last spring, Stephen started renovations.

First up: Take down the dining room wall! 

We loved the immediate effect of extra light. 

Our makeshift kitchen for three months. 

Can't say I miss the sliding doors...

Look at all that crap! 

You can see the dining room window from the kitchen now :)

Rough, but nice. 

While working on the wall, we found the weirdest hole...after a couple weeks of studying it, we settled on the fact that it must have been the original oven complete with slide-out stove top on bottom. Retro.

Oddly large hole. 

Stephen started building up the wall to make it normal. 

Dust sheets everywhere! 

My worker bee. He's a champ. 

This house is sturdy because of Esteban. 

Taking cabinets out was interesting (and smelly), but it opened up the wall to the bathroom so Stephen could finish up a few things. He left the sink in for as long as possible. 

So much electrical work. 

The stove and fridge were moved to the middle of the room.

How jealous are you of this mess? 

The evil portable dishwasher. 

To be continued...