A Crazy Tale of a (Quite Unexpected) Kitchen Remodel

Remember these chairs that I showed you about six weeks ago?

Well, let me tell you…this project has been one adventure after another.

Initially, Julia called me because she had inherited her mother’s quintessential 1950s chrome/vinyl dining chairs and chrome/Formica dining table. She wanted to have them re-chromed, reupholstered, and re-Formica’d (sure, it’s a word!). And then she wanted to do some things here and there to update her kitchen and breakfast room.

I have searched high and low for those “before” pictures, but I simply can’t find them. But picture in your mind a small-ish, closed in kitchen with a breakfast area; plain white kitchen cabinets with very thin doors; dated and stained laminate countertops; redish brick-type flooring; large, busy, dark floral wallpaper; puffy and overstated balloon shade in a heavy floral fabric on the window in the breakfast area; heavy popcorn ceiling; dated appliances; and dated brass lighting.

Can you picture it?

So when I came in to help her, I suggested some basic changes: (1) new doors for the cabinets, (2) painting the cabinets, (3) removal of wallpaper and addition of beadboard and paint, (4) new lighting, (5) new appliances, (6) new window treatments, and (7) new countertops.

After a few months of delays with the contractor, the work finally started. Things were going along fine–new updated doors had been made for the cabinets, the painter was taping everything off to get ready to spray the paint on the cabinets, etc.

And then…

One day a couple of weeks ago, the contractor, Julia, and I, were meeting together going over details, and Julia said, “I don’t know if this is a crazy idea, but what if we put a window over the sink so that I can see into the family room when I’m working in the kitchen?”

The contractor and I nixed the “window” idea immediately, but of course that led to a discussion about the possibilities of knocking out the entire wall between the kitchen and family room to create a great room with a bar area.

She loved the idea…so the forward momentum stopped, we took a couple of steps backwards, and a new plan was devised.

The work began to move forward again, and again, things seemed to be going along great…

And then…

I got a phone call from the contractor, who said, “Kristi, ummm…I think we’re going to need to rip out all of these old cabinets and just start over again.”

So again, the forward momentum stopped, we took a few steps backwards (as the kitchen was gutted), and a newer new plan was devised.

So basically, I was redecorating a kitchen, when an entire full-scale kitchen remodel broke out. :~D

Yeah…sometimes you just have to learn to roll with it. And I’m so glad I did on this one, because it’s going to be beautiful. I stopped by yesterday and snapped a few pictures. (The painter was spraying the cabinets as I was snapping, so I risked my life…and lungs…so that you could see the progress!!) 😀

In this first picture, you can see the original lighting in the top right corner of the photo. The new cabinets have gotten a coat of black paint, the beadboard has been installed (but still needs paint), and the popcorn ceiling is gone! I’m standing in the breakfast area to take these pics–out of the painter’s way.

This is the far end of the same wall of cabinets, with the wall of beadboard at the end:

These are the cabinets opposite the ones above. Obviously, this is where the wall was cut out. The original doorway was just a standard size doorway–probably about 34 inches wide–just to the left of where the cabinets end. This used to be a full wall of upper cabinets.

Well, those are all of the pictures I could snap without suffocating. It’s so fun to see this kind of transformation in someone’s house!! Hope you enjoyed the progress photos! Hopefully I’ll come across those “before” pictures somewhere. It already looks like a completely different kitchen.