before and afters

Well guys, we finally made it!  It's actually been almost five months since the demolition started on our kitchen, and while it hasn't actually taken that long to renovate our kitchen, a combination of loose ends (seriously, tiny things that no one else would ever notice), a busy work/play schedule, and sheer laziness has caused me to delay this post.  But please do not take that as a sign of my ambivalence towards our new kitchen and guest bath.  

I FREAKING LOVE IT.

I gave that sentence so space to make it perfectly clear--I'm totally in love with our new kitchen and guest bath.  I'm pretty sure my husband is edging really close to disowning me because every other sentence I say is, "Can you believe she's all ours?"  (I bet new parents say that about their babies; however, since we do not have a regular baby, this will have to do.)

So to jog your memory, I've compiled the following series of before and afters.  It's made me realize that for-real bloggers' jobs are more complex than you might realize.  They have to anticipate what camera angles are interesting now and will be interesting later.  So I apologize that these are not all from the same angle.

 BEFORE:  Our dining room had two doors--the right one leading into our kitchen, and the left door leading into a guest bathroom.  The first time we had friends over for a meal, we recognized that bathroom had to be moved.  Plus, it was in terrible condition.

AFTER:  The door leading to the guest bathroom is gone!  Our original plans included expanding the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, but it wasn't in the cards.  I'll leave it at that... Anyway, we also bought a new buffet which you can see peeking out in the right hand corner.

BEFORE:  This picture of our old kitchen was taken from the breakfast nook.  As you can see, the usable space in this kitchen is somewhat limited.  The cabinets look okay in this pic, but in reality, they were plastic-y and falling apart.  Also, the floors were incredibly wavy, with peaks as high as 5 inches above the valleys.

AFTER:  Because we removed the guest bath that was behind the wall with the range on it, we were able to push the kitchen into the old guest bath space--which also gave us the opportunity to add a window above the sink.  Our old kitchen had only one window, and it was less than 4 inches wide.  The refrigerator is just to the right of where this picture ends.

BEFORE:  The refrigerator was oodly tiny and in this nook on its own.  I'm also a refrigerator "decoration" hoarder.  Since our new fridge is stainless steel, we already have plans in place for a new place to store all of my "decorations".  This picture also illustrates just how wavy our floors used to be--those grout lines were seriously that crooked.

 

AFTER:  Since we moved the refrigerator to be closer to the rest of the kitchen proper, we were left with a great space for a bar and our microwave.  My 2 year old nephew made a beeline for that microwave, pushing all of its buttons the second he arrived at my house.  While I love the location of the microwave now (especially since we were able to get a real range hood), these are the things you don't even realize until you have kids I guess.

BEFORE:  The old kitchen had a breakfast nook that we really didn't use.  Mostly because we didn't have breakfast nook furniture, but also because the floors were so wavy in there, I wouldn't be able to relax and have a meal in that room without getting seasick.  It was nice to have a place to throw that new fridge after we bought it off of craigslist a few months before the renovation began.

AFTER:  The breakfast nook turned into our new bathroom!  Our contractors designed this recessed alcove for the door to give this bathroom a better sense of privacy from our last layout.

BEFORE:  Our breakfast nook had a little thing we called the beverage station.  On the other side of this wall is our guest bedroom...

AFTER: ...which means we were able to add a door so now our guest bathroom also leads directly into our guest bedroom!  The layout and flow of our house has been majorly upgraded!

BEFORE:  Let's not forget how scary the old bathroom was though.  The tile was pretty much all cracking, the odd L-shaped vanity had a weird mauve pink hexagonal sink, and the shower was also a wonderful mauve.

AFTER:  The window from the old guest bathroom now looks like this--as a part of our much loved, new kitchen!