kitchen progress!

Keep in mind that while our kitchen is hardly "done," the materials are in and it's ready to be painted and decorated.

Here are some pics of the kitchen before we moved in. Remember that I hated it and us being able to re-do it was really the deciding factor in buying the house.






Here are some "during" shots:
First thing we worked on (ourselves) was the floor. Kevin refinished all of the wood floors in the main level of the home and one of the bedrooms upstairs, so we figured we might as well have him do the kitchen at the same time. It had five layers- FIVE of old tile, backing, glue and God knows what else on top of the beautiful pine. Once we got that stuff up, we needed to remove and fill the nail holes, sand it down, stain and poly. Quite a job. ETA: ***I have to add here - at the suggestion of my brother in law, Matthew- that my brother in laws were PARAMOUNT in accomplishing the floors. Not just in the kitchen, but the breakfast nook and in our living room, too. They all spent hours slaving away on the project and by no means could we have done it withouth them. THANKS AGAIN, MATTHEW, MARK AND CHRISTOPHER!!!**** now, maybe I should take this next sentence out....
And to be honest, we will probably re-do and the breakfast nook again some day because they are darker than we had anticipated and show every spec of dust or salt that drops on the floor. (look how little Preston was!)





These are when they took out the old backsplash and took down the cabinet doors. They began the plaster work to repair the wall where the backsplash was and we had to live without cabinet doors for far too long. The sink, faucet and countertops were installed somewhere around that time, too.







Then, right before Christmas, we got a little tease of it starting to take shape. However, that was quickly ended when we realized we had to actually "move out" of the kitchen and put everything in boxes so that the painters could begin. So the first two pictures- it was like that for 1 day, then the last one- for about three weeks. This was also how it looked when we were out of our home for 5 days during the ice storm. I can't tell you how awful it was to come home to a house - with all the faucets running so that our pipes didn't freeze, fill up a generator to keep the heat going, and find it in this shape when we had to walk though the kitchen. Christmas a few days away- no gifts wrapped. Shopping not done. Not living in our house. Stress.




Then, the painters said they were coming, then they couldn't, then they were supposed to get started, and something happened. They were "losing power," "helping their grandmother," "needed to sand and fill the doors," "mixing the glaze," etc...etc...etc... They were very nice guys and did a great job, but all in all, it was really absurd and took almost 5 weeks longer than expected. What a nightmare. However, once they were done, the doors and drawers went on, the hardware was installed and the kitchen began to really take shape. The microwave was installed and we are now living with it ready to be painted, decorated and we are in desperate need of window treatments. (And new windows.) :) Here are some pics of how it looks now: