Welcome to Kitchen Week! I couldn’t possibly fit all of the kitchen remodel details into one week so this week focuses on my Top 5 Favorite things we did. But also, a bit of the reasoning behind why I have been counting down the years, and looking forward to this day so much!
Kitchen Week | Post 2
Standing in my current favorite spot of the house, a little bit of history into how I started my planning process for the remodel, here are the basic points: Every house I’ve ever lived in had you walk right into the kitchen. More specifically, the main door opened right into the view of a kitchen sink, typically full of dishes… So I really wanted this house to be different. Secondly, all the storage in here was a low cupboard that I had to crawl into to get everything out of. Now everything is a drawer and it is so much easier to get to everything! The third reason is in Post 3.
Kitchen Week | Post 3
Yes, this property was incredible, yes it’s also an amazing house with the wraparound porch of my DREAMS! But… it doesn’t have any storage space. The whole house has two closets in the hallway, and we made one of them the pantry when we moved in. The house did, of course, have those three exterior doors and the porch space in front of them. This door leads into the corner of the living room, for example. No real benefit. This 10′ Space of the porch we did make great use of when the boys were little. It was the space on the other side of this door that I used for their Mess Mat preschool area, so the door opened and they had a little corral and a garden out here. As they outgrew that space, and grew into eating way more, we needed a bigger pantry. This space you see here is the space the new pantry is now, in the next picture, you’ll see how much this 10′ square space has been upgraded!
Kitchen Week | Post 4
Ta-Da! Good-bye little square of porch space, and hello new pantry! Obviously this is my number 1 favorite part of the kitchen remodel. But this picture showcases something you might not know, in that this is my Dad’s Countertop. When we moved into this house 10 years ago, my dad helped Billy do a lot of the things you see today. His first mission, and as a housewarming present, was to get us a proper countertop to replace that hollow door-wood ensemble you see in the before pictures. He bought me my first “kitchen jewelry” he called it, and they were able to reuse it here in the pantry. My Dad was the cook in our family (chef really) and it’s a very special piece of our house history for me to have this in here.
Kitchen Week | Post 5
My “New Kitchen Favorite Upgrade” Number 2, is the new countertop and island! The previous kitchen layout did not allow for a large enough island to have sitting and stools. The new one does! The new Island Countertop where we can sit and eat together is twice the size of the original. We were able to serve Christmas Dinner from here this year too! Complete with Dad’s serving dishes 🙂 I’m also a huge fan of all our new lighting, which is Favorite Upgrade Number 3. We did not have any island lighting before the remodel, not to mention the under cabinet lights, The floor lights are on an occupancy sensor, by the way, so they click on when you walk into the kitchen, first thing in the morning. It’s the perfect amount of coffee-making glow.
Kitchen Week | Post 6
The giant apron sink and Instant Hot Water Tap are my favorites number 4. Never ever have I owned a sink we could fit so many dishes into! It’s quite the game changer along with the hot water tap I had always wanted. We drink so much more tea now. Seems silly and simple, but it’s a huge change from before. Also, the fact that it is no longer the very first thing you see when you walk into the house, although now it’s so pretty, it should be!
Kitchen Week | Post 7
I would say finally, but we all know I’m not done sharing this kitchen… My 5th Favorite upgrade is the new Pull Out Trash Can. I know, I know, we’re so very late to this game, everyone has one, for good reason. But now we finally have ours. I can chop things, and just swipe it right into the pullout. I think I have cooked more in this kitchen in the last 9 weeks than I have in the entire previous 9 YEARS, thanks to all these upgrades. I won’t lie, I don’t love cooking, so if it wasn’t easy to do, I didn’t do it. The crawling into the back of cupboards to get things, and ingredients being spread across the house for storage really put a damper on the excitement of a kitchen. So I guess I’m in my kitchen era now, and I actually enjoy working here! Next week I’ll give everyone a break from the remodel sharing though, as we celebrate the youngest of my favorite humans. Next Week we’re celebrating Wyatt, as it’s his birthday week. I’m sharing his birth story, namesake, and all the things I love about him. Stay Tuned.
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