The Kitchen Before and After

I’ve put off writing this for a while, but finally, here’s some side-by-sides of the multiple months of work in our kitchen.

When we started the design process, I found some pictures of a very fancy and very expensive kitchen that I loved. I decided to try to replicate parts of it on a significantly smaller budget and to fit the space.

The left is the design, the right is the actual kitchen.

For context, here is the layout of the house when we bought it:

Here’s (a rough attempt at) the new floor plan:

Then after some minor renovations, here’s what it looked like in the fall of 2016 right before demolition:

From the living room looking to the back of the house. Top left is the day we got the keys, top right is after we refinished the floors in 2013, bottom left is in fall of 2016, bottom right is post-renovation, 2017.

Here’s the look into the old kitchen that is now an extension of our seating area/ open space. The top left is the original kitchen floor, top right is a look into the pass-through area from dining room to kitchen. Center left shows the middle wall, middle right is the peninsula counter where the wall once was.  Bottom left is the peninsula looking into the new kitchen that once was the dining room. Bottom right is the look into the original kitchen that is now the bar seating/storage area.

Where we once had a wall dividing the kitchen and dining rooms, is now a big countertop peninsula with bar seating area.

Appliances. Alright, I splurged on many of these, but they are all worth it. Here are the appliances I cooked on for 3 years:

Then here’s the stove area now:

And the peninsula, equipped with a drawer microwave and super, super silent dishwasher. Did I mention how quiet it is?

Now, let’s talk about the back of the house. Here’s what our dining room now looks like.

The back area of our house was once the sleeping porch when it was built in 1925. It was later enclosed, but the floors were still slanted and left for an awkward space. Here are some original photos from 2013 when we tore up the carpet, took the paint off the floors then refinished to make for living space. (oh and look at little Gabe!)

The top right is right before the renovation started. The rest of the images are of the new wet bar and dining area that leads to the deck.

And of course, there’s the deck. See those before and afters here.