Justin bought our house nearly two years ago from the original family that built it in the 1960s. While it is certainly sturdy and well built, is has never been updated. Exhibit A: Notice our tongue-and-groove pine paneling (which is pretty remarkable in and of itself) with the same pine cabinets (makes for a cave-like appearance) and the lovely honeycomb linoleum, which was worn through in several spots, but has held up pretty well for being almost 50 years old, although probably would not have our house featured in Better Homes and Gardens.
We decided to take on this project on our own to save money for other important stuff—you know—bills. Luckily, my sweetie is pretty handy with power tools and he’s had some experience working with his dad in their kitchen before.
He’s not amused at me while we’re trying to clear out the space.
And the demolition begins. We (well Justin really) planned for me to be completely out of the house the weekend they were installing the new cabinets, but I got to stand by for some of the destruction before I scooted on over to Savannah to visit my sister at college and catch the opening weekend of New Moon.
You see that huge giant white thing the size of my stove? That was our water heater. More on that later.*
RAWR! My man just looks good with power tools :)
My lovely sister-in-law playing like one of the Price is Right models—showing off the new counter tops.
Carpentry is a messy job y’all! My sweet father-in-law let our cabinets take up residence in his shop for the better part of two months while we slowly made it through the process.
Man, after this project, I will be on hiatus from painting for the next decade. Each and every single piece had to be given three coats of Kilz and two coats of the color paint- which I may or may not have picked out just because it was named “Cake Batter.” :)
Here they are installed in the house---Justin is a genius with cabinets, if I do say so myself.
Notice this beauty? Justin built in a small wine rack and a place to slide wine glasses. His liquor fits in the back of the space just perfectly.
Have you ever seen someone so excited about kitchen storage?!?! I LOVE EVERY BIT OF IT!!!
As soon as we got the bottom cabinets in, Justin laid the flooring- a floating linoleum tile floor that looks like stone. It’s super durable- Skie can play hell on some flooring when she tromps her 160-pound self through the kitchen- and looks great with the counter tops we picked up.
About a month later (the week between Christmas and New Years’) we finished demolition on the top half of the cabinets. I missed a lot of demolition last time, but boy did these folks love their nails! There were about 15 nails in this one board!
And VOILA!!! Here is the final product. Justin did an awesome job with the help of all the guys in our family with installation.
I am so proud to have a new brighter and more functional kitchen!
*Remember the GIGANTO water heater I mentioned earlier? Check out this:
See that red arrow? That’s where the water heater used to be. We were able to make that entire cabinet front a slide-out drawer cabinet to hold our trash can, cleaning supplies AND a tankless on-demand water heater! WOOT!!! I love having extra space.
It was a hard job, but looking back on it now, boy was it worth it. Can you believe the whole thing set us back less than $2,500? That’s the right number of zeros there folks! It’s amazing what you can get done if you work really hard :)
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