Kitchen Renovation

So why did I want to change a perfectly good functional kitchen. Because it was just like everyone else’s, it had no personality and no style. So how did I transform our builder grade kitchen into something more my style? Let me show you. Remember this?

Tile Removal

I wanted to be able to use that space above my upper cabinets for storage. My pantry was the size of small shoe box, and I hated that my trash can was out in the open. Not to mention that elevated counter thing in front of my sink (who does that). Anyways, once the kitchen was cleared out it was time to bring in the big guns!

Mama wasn’t playing! But on the other hand daddy had other plans, hmmmm!

Popcorn Ceiling Removal

Once the floor was gone, we started with getting rid of those hideous popcorn ceilings and that old florescent light in the main part of the kitchen. Once the popcorn was gone, we had to re-tape/mud and paint.

My small pantry was removed, but saved for another project.

Pantry Rebuild

Garrick built me a bigger and deeper pantry with draws that would slide, for those hard to reach items. The draws for the pantry came from the habitat store…score (and my husband always complains about me bringing home junk, ladies those are his words, hah how you like my pantry now)!

new pantry

Decorative Trim

So remember when I said I wanted storage over the tops of the upper cabinets? Yea, that didn’t happen, apparently there wasn’t enough room so I opted to make the current cabinets look bigger by encasing the opened area with wood and trim.

Java Gel Stain Cabinets

Now it was time to add some color to those cabinets. I opted to give the General Finishes Java Gel Stain a try. First we cleaned the cabinets with TSP before getting started. The gel stain covered good with two coats. Painting cabinets isn’t hard (I don’t think), but it is time consuming and tedious. Tip: If you don’t have a steady hand to paint, you may want to tape off everything before getting started. I choose to always skip that step (but not my husband) and completely optional but you can skip the step where you take everything out of your cabinets…no judging!

Concrete Counter Tops

Counter tops were a hard decision. But we ended up going with stained concrete. And yes, we did those ourselves to. We went with the Z counterform for the edges so that we could pour them in place with no seams.

Finally, its time for the back splash! If you noticed that purple color, we added under mount lights to the top and lower cabinets. They can change colors and they are really nice at night time, because they are motion sensor.