Kitchen Makeover: Part 1 (Before)

When we bought our house we knew we would have some work to do in the kitchen.  The cabinets were in decent shape but the dark wood and dated hardware weren't really working for us. And after reading this post from Young House Love we felt like somebody was watching us too.

Notice anything missing? Where's the dishwasher?  After living in an apartment (sans dishwasher) while going to grad school for two years, a dishwasher was an absolute must for us.

The very vintage wallpaper will be was first to go.   My mom and I spent several weekends working on peeling up all the wallpaper in this room.  Did you know your arms get quite a workout from wallpaper removal?  We were so glad this was the only room with wallpaper; it was so tedious!  Matt ripped out the back deck, busted up a sidewalk, and removed all the old shingles from the roof (with help from both our dads) in the time it took my mom and me to finish removing the wallpaper!

 

We did not know what to make of the strange wall with the railings.  This wall divided the kitchen from a living/dining space and made the kitchen feel dark, cramped, and confined from the rest of the house.  We envisioned a large and open kitchen that flowed into the neighboring room which we plan to use as a dining room/extra living space.

Our kitchen checklist looked like this when we started:

So far we have finished the wallpaper removal, purchased new appliances (not yet delivered), selected countertops, and we finally finished painting the kitchen cabinets!   Some projects we felt more comfortable leaving to the experts and our contractor handled those for us (especially taking out a wall!). We can't wait to share more details as our kitchen starts to come back together.

xo
Steph