If you are interested in seeing what our entire house looked like when we first purchased it in 2017, check out this post here.
When we first moved in to our new house back in 2017, we knew immediately that the small, dark galley kitchen in the center of the first floor would not be sufficient for our family. I started daydreaming about what our kitchen could look like, but we knew it would be a huge project, and one that we wanted to (mostly) tackle ourselves.
The problems with our kitchen were endless: Cheap, outdated appliances, leaky plumbing, faulty electrical outlets, limited counter space, and cabinetry hung WAY too high (did a giant live here before?!). But the biggest problem, and the first we needed to tackle, was the size of the room. There was no way we could renovate within the confines of this small room and have the kitchen we needed. So we began brainstorming where we could remove walls to open up this room. The long story cut short: we couldn’t. The load-bearing wall on one side made it impossible and the wall on the other side would have put our kitchen in a very awkward location. The solution: We decided to completely relocate our kitchen to the large “den” behind it. This would leave the load-bearing wall in tact, and allow us to open that small galley kitchen up to the dining room, and create a much larger dining room appropriate for our family size as well.
Not only would this leave the current wall in tact, but it would give us an excuse to wall off the hallway in the back of the lower level, which was awkwardly open to the kitchen and den, leaving no privacy for bedrooms and bathrooms. Incidentally, when we had a contractor come out to discuss our floor plan changes, he pointed out that the previous owners actually took down the wall that used to serve this purpose — a load-bearing wall! So it had to be replaced anyway to maintain the structural integrity of our house. Win-win.
Once we determined where the kitchen would live, I got to work on planning. Y’all, I’m quitting my job as a veterinarian to become a kitchen designer because it was so much fun. I used the IKEA kitchen planner tool as we had decided to go with IKEA cabinetry to save money. After a few attempts and LOTS of measuring, this is what we came up with:
A few considerations and things I knew I wanted in my kitchen:
- New flooring that could span the entire downstairs of our house, so must be water resistant
- Recessed lighting (bye bye fluorescent rectangle!)
- White cabinetry with a few glass-front accent cabinets and drawers on the bottom for accessibility
- Light, bright countertops
- Glorious white subway tile everywhere
- Updated stainless steel appliances
- A huge stainless steel sink
- A pantry space (we had none in our kitchen and were using the laundry room to store food)
- An island if possible, though we weren’t sure if it would be cramped in the space
- A stylish, stainless steel range hood instead of the current microwave/hood option
- And then the obvious: Functional outlets and plumbing
Kitchen mood board: While we weren’t sure exactly what products we would be using, I knew we wanted white IKEA cabinetry, a white subway tile backsplash, white or gray quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances, and a large stainless steel sink. We also had plans to upgrade all flooring downstairs for some waterproof laminate.
Can you see it? Well… Spoiler alert: We started the process of renovating our kitchen in September 2019, and are finally in the home stretch, and it’s better than I could have ever hoped for! Keep an eye out in the next few weeks because I’m so excited to share the glorious, beautiful, spacious after! I also plan on sharing the details on what we DIY’d and what we hired out, as well as a general cost breakdown for those of you planning your own kitchen projects. Stay tuned!
