Before...

Before I get into the details of our major remodel of the kitchen, laundry room, and downstairs floors, I thought it was important for you to get a background, the history if you will. Our house was built in 1989. Our kitchen was probably cool in '89.  But then again, so were side ponytails, teased bangs, and scrunchies. One who was cool in '89 would probably continue to change with the times. Not our kitchen. It was like a fanny pack at Six Flags. Cool in the 80's, but laugh-worthy now. Thank God that is a style that hasn't come back. I would officially give up on all things fashion.

But on the important things. The kitchen....

We had this white kitchen. The walls were white-ish, the cabinets were white (painted by hand as a DIY job at some point to cover the brown you can see in the bottom right corner), the counters were 4"x4" white-ish tiles, and I am fairly certain the floor was white at some point in it's lifetime. When we moved in it was a cream color and the grout was black. At least it wasn't that fancy checkerboard tile you see in the bottom left that graced our mud room. EWW! I am pretty sure the counters were a DIY job too, because they weren't laid straight and weren't evenly spaced. We also had those weird square lights in the ceiling. The face plates were on a spring, so when the light bulbs were changed, you had to pry the face off with one hand while unscrewing the bulb with the other. 

The brown cabinets were from the laundry room. They don't look so bad on the outside, but I felt bad for leaving my poor cleaning products inside there. They were probably quivering at the sight of the disgusting stains in there. Another big EWWW! 

At the top, center picture you can see the china cabinet/tv cabinet. I am not sure what it's intended purpose was. There was a cable jack inside the cabinet, but not sure if it was supposed to be there or not. No real complaints on that thing, but just didn't go very well in the space. 

Now, some of you may be sitting there judging me for judging this kitchen so harshly. "You should have seen the kitchen in our first house when we were newlyweds!" I get it. My parents walked uphill to school both ways too! The real problem with the kitchen was the cabinets and the electrical work. The cabinets were made of MDF. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, that is the "wood" that Ikea furniture is made of. It's great when you need an economical furniture option for a room in your home. Not great for cabinets that have been hanging there for 23 years. We couldn't really put our plates in most of the cabinets because they were bowed so bad. The other problem was the electrical. The woman who lived here before us had a "contractor" (and yes I am using that job description loosely) rig some lights above the cabinets to give the kitchen some more light. Great idea! However, he stripped the wires, and rigged them all together, and then stripped the microwave plug so he could tie the lights into that and they would light up whenever the microwave was plugged in. It was a fire just waiting to happen. 

Aesthetically, I just hated looking at this space that had so much potential. It was functional the way it should have been, and it really just needed a face lift. 

Next up...the design elements we picked out to really pull our new kitchen together!