Kitchen renovation || AFTER

Well, that was an insanely long break between the last time I wrote about the kitchen renovation. More than a year ago to the day I wrote this post about the second wave of renovation, and here's where we started.

We're finally at a stage where I can officially call the kitchen finished, and it's very nice to feel done with the whole thing.
Did it take us a whole year to do ourselves? Yes, yes it did.
Was it expensive? Yes, yes it was.
Would we do it again? 100% yes (although in retrospect we'd change some things, but more on that later).

As a reminder, here's the way-before before, from the house listing photos:

Although our house was built in 1957, the kitchen was by far the least attractive bit of it (and that's coming from midcentury modern enthusiasts in myself & David). The weird pseudo-country hinges and handles on the cabinet, the peeling laminate countertop, the wall oven that didn't fit a standard sized cookie sheet, the very low ceiling fan, and the cooktop in the middle of the only useable stretch of counter space were all motivating factors in trying to fix it up.

This, compounded with the fact that houses in our immediate neighborhood have been selling for $50,000-$75,000 over what we purchased our house for, meant that spending a little $$$$ to fix it up was smart, financially-speaking. We've put a lot of money into it, yes -- some because we know we'll make it back, and some because we like home renovating and it's one of our shared hobbies. But the end money is something to always consider when you're renovating. Sure, you want the functionality and aesthetic for your own enjoyment, of course. (I can't gush enough about how much easier our kitchen is to use now with the big, long island.) But you gotta be smart about sinking money into things or you'll regret it down the line.

We did some intermediary fixes between buying our house and starting the kitchen, like replacing the oven with one that fit normal sized pans, taking down the gross curtains and droopy fan, but didn't touch it too much until we started the full gutting.

Ready??
And now for some afters!

We definitely felt like we did this kitchen almost as cheaply as we could have -- heck, we did the countertops ourselves -- but it still adds up when you're replacing a whole floor and four appliances on their own. Later on down in the post you can see my estimate of what we actually spent in total -- I believe that home renovation posts should be really, really honest about numbers. Obviously if you're starting from scratch, you're going to spend more than we did, because we already had a lot of tools we used, and we had a little experience under our belt before taking this on. But for a whole kitchen renovation that looks pretty damn different from where we started? We came out on the cheap side, and I'm very proud of our hard work and results for not a lot of money.

My favorite parts of the kitchen are as follows:
The island.
I am not entirely sure how I ever cooked in this kitchen before this island. (And I am far and away from a gourmet cook.) There is so much glorious, unobstructed space to spread out on! I can use a cutting board without putting it on top of a glass range! I can make multiple things at once! I can spread out dirty dishes galore without hampering my ability to do anything else! It's wonderful. Changing the layout and the flow of the room really helped with making it functional, too -- we can use the island as a prep space, as a serving counter, as a grocery dump, all without having to wiggle around a jutting-out peninsula.

The microwave.
I am weird, I know, but I seriously love the fact that we put our microwave into the counters. Is it tempting for little fingers? Yes, but worth the risk. I extremely dislike microwaves mounted above the stove, and taking up precious real estate on the counter for an appliance bugs me (see above, haha). Building it in works perfectly for us.

The green accent wall.
I used to be a neutrals-only person when it came to what I liked in home design. As we've experimented over the years, I find that what I like on Pinterest isn't really what I like to live in. In real life, I like bold, bright jewel tones in small doses -- see our rug in the living room, the rugs in the kids' rooms, our accent colors & art. So I knew I needed some color in here or it would feel bland. I'm still in love with the green wall and I want to use it again somewhere in our house, but just haven't found the right spot yet.

Are there things I'd change? Yes, let's get into them.
1. I love the idea and the look of our square, shiny chrome knobs on the cabinets, but they annoy the crap out of me. They're constantly smudged, they twist even when you tighten them really really well, and the one by the back door I constantly snag on pockets in my jeans/dresses/coats. (That last one is mostly due to my specific exact height, but it's still annoying.) They weren't expensive, but it's not in the budget right now to replace them.

2. If we were to do it all again, I'd spend the extra money and replace ALL the cabinets. I love love love the IKEA cabinets in the island, mostly because the all-drawer layout makes them extremely functional. I dislike all of our low cabinets on the sink wall, and I'm so happy David built the drawers for the microwave section. All! Drawers! Forever! We can fit so many things in them, they stay organized much easier, and they're prettier too (I'm a sucker for horizontal lines).

3. I'm getting more and more into color theory, and looking at our kitchen now in comparison to the rest of the house, I think I should have added some more warm tones to even it out. Midcentury design leans very heavily into warm tones, and we went very on the cool side with the cool gray floor, stainless steel, white cabinets. I've been trying to bring in more warm tones and hope to do that more in the future (ceiling light fixtures? custom range hood? etc.) but I think I could have avoided it if I went more of a very very light cream on the cabinet color. I'm being nitpicky, of course, and the warm sunlight through the windows means you don't notice it a ton, but I do.

4. Cheap-#ss faucet. It was cheap, and we figured we'd try it. Do not recommend it. Will eventually replace with a quality one, somewhere down the line in the future.

Lots of the decor stuff I stole from around the rest of the house for these photos, so I don't have those sources listed, but below you can find almost everything else. And the cost! (gulp.)

SOURCES
Floor tile: Home Depot, I'm not going to do the math and calculate how much we bought minus how many freaking times we had to return/rebuy but it was somewhere near $700 for the whole floor I'd guess
Paint colors: Beautiful Acres by Joanna Gaines (green accent wall), Piece of Cake by Joanna Gaines (cream everywhere else)
Sink rug: Safavieh from Target, $70
Sink: Home Depot, $281
Faucet: do not recommend so I'm not going to link it!!!, $50 ish, will replace with something that costs a lot more, got from Overstock
Backsplash: Home Depot, $200
Island cabinets: IKEA with Torhamn fronts, we spent around $1397 (had to return and rebuy a couple things so that's sort of an estimate)
Wood for new cabinet fronts: Home Depot, $100
Countertops: SolidSurface.com, $900 (can't link because they sell out of specific styles since they're leftover "slabs")
Horizontal pulls: Home Depot, $75
Square cabinet pulls: Stone Harbor Hardware, $100
Fridge: Home Depot, linked similar because ours is no longer sold, $1400
Range: Home Depot, $897, best splurge of the kitchen to get a slide-in range that doesn't have the annoying back panel controls!
Dishwasher: Home Depot, $547
Microwave: Home Depot, $120
Table: handmade by David using these Etsy legs, set of two for $103
Landscape art: Etsy, printed at Costco and framed with At Home frame, $40
Caned back chairs: local upscale consignment, vintage
Dining room chairs: not going to link, do not recommend, they're from Wayfair or Overstock I think
Abstract portraits: Etsy, printed at Costco, Target frames, $30
Island cheese board: hand-made by my sister, Lucy <3

$6,910 total

+ things like wood for the cabinets David remade, tools, backerboard for tile floor, mortar, sandpaper, paint rollers, etc. as well as LABOR - both David's and his dad's (thanks for everything Jeff!) and mine and the hours we spent researching/buying/planning etc. which certainly would be charged for if you are hiring someone to do a kitchen!

If you want the source on anything else, let me know and I'll try and dig it up for you. Happy to share when I'm trying so hard to be budget-friendly. Did you expect me to take a FULL YEAR to finish this up? Because I certainly didn't. Thanks for bearing with me! and happy cooking/let's-be-honest-just-microwaving!
HG