The Great Kitchen Renovation

Yes, this is the third kitchen we've renovated.  Every house we've ever owned, we've made major changes to the kitchen. It helps when your dad is a cabinet-maker, of course.  ::grin::  But I think this is my FAVORITE kitchen so far.  I've always wanted white beadboard (even when it wasn't fashionable) and I love the mossy green color in contrast with the floors and the counters.  But the coolest thing is the rolling cabinet - the kitchen is tiny, so my dad built another cabinet on wheels so we can move it around to use, and tuck it up under the window when we don't need it.  It also added tons of storage, which was also a critical addition.

So without further ado, here's the "Before" - yeah, it looks all nice and pretty, but the philosopher pulled those off the walls with almost no tools.  Cheap, crappy fiberboard and they weren't even put together correctly.  We were afraid to put anything heavy on the top cabinets for fear they'd actually fall off the walls.  Bad, I'm telling you... BAD.

 

So we started the disassembly on Sunday evening.  We took everything out and stacked it in the living room and the dining room (making sure the toaster oven would be accessible, and moving the dish rack to the bathroom since we wouldn't have a kitchen sink for a few days!)  

Oh, yeah - and the coffeepot - that was the LAST thing to be moved!

The philosopher finished up the demolition on Monday, while I was at work.  Apparently he tossed the cabinets off the back deck, and they broke into lots of tiny pieces that he then had to go and clean up.  (But really, that was probably easier than one guy trying to haul sections down the stairs, right?  And it made large crashing sounds, which is always satisfying!)

What a mess.  What a BIG mess.  So this happened on Monday.  Tuesday morning my dad and one of his guys showed up with a trailer full of cabinets.  The philosopher actually worked for dad for a semester, so he was able to help do a lot too - dad's crew got the cabinets hung, leveled, and installed, then G and I hung the doors.  

 We also put on the knobs and pulls - which doesn't sound so hard until you realize that we also had to drill the screw holes in the right spot for each one.  (I won't as you to look for the ones that may not be *exactly* even....).  Then, finally, I added the new paint. Whew!

 VOILA!  And the first meal cooked in our spiffy new kitchen?  A vegetable pot pie with a cheddar biscuit crust.... YUM.