Before and After Kitchen Remodel

Todd and I decided to go through with a kitchen remodel after much deliberation.  We talked about doing nothing to the late 70's kitchen on one end of the spectrum and on the other end of the spectrum was taking out all the walls so the kitchen, family room, and living room were one great room.  To due the later would of course cost tons more money with lots of demo work and we would have to raise the current dropped ceiling in the kitchen.  When you start opening ceilings like that, you just don't know what kind of pandora's box you are opening.  We decided to go for middle of the road option as you'll see from the pictures below.  I know they say you usually get most of your money back from kitchen remodels but with the realestate market what it is now, not sure that would be the case especially since we don't see this house as our final destination.  For now we get to enjoy the kitchen and since I do all the cooking I am really enjoying it!!  And hopefully when it is time to upgrade to a bigger house, the kitchen remodel will at least help sell the house quicker.  We started the remodel sometime in January and it took about a month for Liem (our contracter) to finish the job.  We decided it would be good to do before I moved in and that would also allow Todd to have my kitchen to use as his was inoperable for awhile.

I am standing in the front right corner of the house taking a picture diagonally in towards the kitchen.

Same angle as picture above but now you can see we completely removed a wall that was extending off our kitchen that created a small hall from the front entry as you walked towards the kitchen.  There was also a hallway closet that I do miss that was a part of that wall.  To help create that open feel on this main floor without completely removing walls Todd liked the idea of creating 2 pass throughs instead.  We debated on putting the counter section then on top of that area.  I am so glad we did all of it.  It really lets more light into the kitchen which it was really lacking and you'll see on the other side what else we added.

Old view from standing in the living room and looking back towards the dinning room.

Obviously we've done more to the dinning room since this photo was taken but you can see how nice it is to have the pass through facing the kitchen creating more of a conversational area.

I have to say I hated eating and preparing food in this kitchen.  The flouresent lighting square hurt my eyes and it flashed, the aweful wallpaper, and the old partical board cabinets.......need I say more! 

We know have more realestate for counter space which honestly you can never have enough of!  We also have more cabinet space.  Since we don't have an actual pantry this has become our pantry that is stacked full.  I'm not sure what we would do without it to be honest.  Great addition to the house.  He also have bought 2 stool height chairs to place at the bar on the right.  I'll have to post some updated photos.

The lovely old cabinets and cream colored appliances.....don't miss them!

New tile floors, tile back splash, & cabinets with slow closures.  We obviously have all new stainless steal appliances of which the refrigerator I love the best with the sub-freezer drawer!  = )  It's like heaven!  We've also painted what little wall left.

The corner of kitchen with the lazy susan.

Leim recommended taking out the curve in the corner of coner/cabinet on the bottom and adding an addition cabinet to left of window to help with the balance.  We decided to go with his suggestion and I think it was a good plan.

More view of our old lovely cabinets.

The kitchen sink is undermount setting which is a must.  I also love our gooseneck sink faucet.  You can see better here that the cabinets are better waited from side to side although not perfect.