Kitchen Aid (the renvo that keeps going and going…)

We knew when we bought our home the kitchen was going to need some a lot of work.  Our home was built in 1964 and the last time the kitchen saw any love was probably around the ’90’s when the laminate floor and appliances were replaced.  We considered this a wonderful blank slate for the future!

First things first.  Immediately I enlisted my mothers help to paint the cabinets on day #5 of owning the crib.  This painting project started before we moved in (thank goodness).  It required oil primer and a lot of sanding and patience.  I set up the living room as my painting area with the help of plastic drop sheets.

A little priming and I was ready to go!

We decided not to paint the inside of the cabinets, just gave them a good cleaning.

Of course after we finished painting the cabinets and replacing the hardware, the backsplash was the next to go up.  This was my “practice”  job before the bathroom renvo that I posted about here.

After reupholstering the banquette seating, painting the walls a light grey, adding new lighting, and replacing the floor, my kitchen looked like this as of Sunday afternoon.

The banquette area below has always been a useless area for us.  We always eat in the dining room.  In the past 5 years we had major plans for turning this area into extended cabinetry and a wrap-around counter.  Because our littlest pup Ninka lives in this area when we are gone (we still can’t trust her in the house)  it has received some rough wear-and-tear, hence the torn upholstery on the bench (major boo!)  Ninka just hasn’t learned.

Since the seating is obviously ruined (yes, i know it would be easily reupholstered)  we decided to move forward with the transformation of the banquette into badly needed cabinetry and counter space.  The way the seat was designed is actually quite genius.  The stairs to the basement are below this area so there is a strange angle that we will have to custom build to fit the space.

The first step is to build a frame for the new cabinetry. The bottom part will be two faux cabinets.  The section between the counter and faux cabinets will be a odd sized custom built cabinet.  Lucky for us, Ryan’s dad has a wood working hobby (that I mentioned here) .  We are enlisting him to help build this odd base cabinet.

So why do we need to eliminate this breakfast nook and add storage and counter tops??? Well, lets just take a look at the inside of my one-and-only food storage pantry.  I can’t believe I am revealing this mess to you all….

My dishes are housed across the way.  That cabinet also holds pasta.  Because all normal people keep their pasta and taco seasoning with their dishes…

And the spice cabinet above the stove, well, that is just embarrassing!

Worst of all is the mess above our fridge.  Since I am type A, always wanting control and order (mentioned here), this makes me twitch ever time I look up.  It has to go………

So needless to say, we are very excited about this whole kitchen reno.  It’s been a long time coming.  Stay tuned for our progress!