Our Kitchen | My favorite room in the house

We started this house project less than a year ago. Some have said we're crazy on how much we've done within our first 10 months of being homeowners. Honestly, we're exhausted after one project, only finding ourselves one weekend later say, "What's next?".

This spring we finished the outside with our yard and then the deck... with one major final project left before we were really to "entertain". The kitchen.

JT and I tend to agree on almost everything. And when it came to the kitchen, that pattern continued. We walked into the tile shop to pick out our back splash, looked through the entire store without saying anything, ended up on the same aisle, and both pointed to the same exact tile we like. Weird. Same thing happened with our counter top as well. It's almost as if we're becoming more like each other over these last 5 years of marriage.

Color scheme, textiles, knob handles, fixtures.... you name it, we agree. And it's awesome!

This was by far one of the most rewarding projects we've done so far. I literally come home everyday and smile when I see our kitchen. What a fabulous space for baking and cooking and entertaining and creating great things to be enjoyed by anyone who wants to come over.

I love cooking and I love people in our home. So this by far is my favorite room in the house :)

Let's start with a few pictures of what our house looked like when we purchased it.

Carpet. Linoleum. Wallpaper. Faux Butcher-block countertops. Soffit. Enough said.

Original Appliances (except the microwave). Thankful they all still work. And yes, we recycled them.

Our realtor, Cindy, signing our paperwork to put our offer in. Please notice the awesome rose window in the top left corner of the kitchen. "Beautiful stained glass" some would say... but not for the kitchen.

And this is after we painted the walls and put in new floors. It helped... but we still had so far to go to update this space. 

The cabinets were in fantastic condition and all of the bottom shelves slide out with ease, so we knew we'd keep them. We definitely scored on the savings by painting the cabinets white as opposed to purchasing new ones. In order for the soffit to be removed, we had to take down the upper cabinets.

Then after the lighting was redone and soffit was removed (the backsides had to stay due to plumbing and electrical being hid behind them), we had to repaint the ceiling. My cousin Alex was in town the weekend we wanted to do this... so free labor it was! She was up for it and was a great sport... thanks Alex! Couldn't have done it without you :)

Then it was time to put the upper cabinets back on and start to paint the doors and the cabinets. Because I've received this question many times already, I'll go ahead and answer it here. We used liquid sander to give all the doors a rough surface for the primer/paint to adhere to. Then we primed once and painted 2 coats of semi gloss white paint, straight out of the can, no special color. Trick to painting doors so that there are no streaks from the bush is to get all the cracks and seams with your brush, then have your partner go behind you with a roller and paint all the flat surfaces. Wish we would've known this tip before we did all the doors in our house 6 months ago :)

JT putting the cabinets back up.

After one coat of primer.

Painting the cabinet doors.

All coats are finished and the counter top and sink are removed. We painted the soffit the same color as the cabinets to draw the eye up to the ceiling.

After waiting 2 weeks for Home Depot to fix our counter top and reinstall it (it was wrong the first time and they did everything to make it right), we were able to start putting our kitchen back together.

Pendants were hung, glass was installed in that beautiful corner door, appliances were installed, counter tops were fixed, and everything went smoothly.... all we had left to do was the back splash. We laid the tile on Friday night, grouted on Saturday, and by Saturday night we were a little sore and frustrated that it took us so long. DIY videos and TV shows make this look way easier than it is. Travertine is a porous tile and grout majorly sticks to it. Ouch. Our arms and back were so tired after that project was finished. By far one of the hardest things yet in our DIY adventures. I could write a few paragraphs on it, but let's just say that was a great sermon illustration for JT come Sunday.

Laying the tiles.

Cutting the tiles.

Grouting. Enough said.

My back already hurts just having to look at these pictures again. Let's move on to before and afters, shall we?

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Whew. We're done and it feels good. And really... this time I think we're done.... at least till next year! The bathrooms still need to be updated, but nothing that can't wait at least a few more months :) 

I realize I still haven't posted before/afters of our entire house.... somehow we missed that after we moved in. But I promise that's to come. 

If you have questions on how we accomplished anything in the kitchen, feel free to post them in the comments. We're an open book and would love to give advice/tips! 

Now hurry up and come over for dinner. We'd love to have you!