The kitchen is basically finished. I still have a few things to do as far as decorating. The only plain wall has nothing on it yet. I will be trolling the sales and shops this summer for appropriate decor.
We are nearly finished with some storage for the pantry. I will post those pictures when all is completed.
I have yet to get out my labeler and attack the cabinets, but that can wait a bit. I am getting better at remembering where it all goes. Baby steps.
Now, to help you remember what the 'old' kitchen looked like, here are a few reminders.
This was the view from the entry of the living room to the opposite side. This is a very old refrigerator that we inherited when we bought the house. We moved our fridge into the basement and then moved this one into the rec room (where the trees are to the left) and used it throughout the remodel. The tubs held our food in the rec room during the process.
Same view. The fridge was relocated to the other side so we gained a huge amount of workable counter top. Plus, we had no upper cabinets before. Yay.
This is the bit of space we had next to the fridge.
Now, instead of the fridge and a choppy little counter we have this beautiful uninterrupted stretch with plenty of storage below. Yum.
The view of the sink area. There was also this crazy scroll work above the sink.
The sink area now. It was my husbands idea to add the cabinets above the sink. We also added an LED light stick that was hardwired in so we could use the switch. It is awesome.
The old flooring and pantry.
The new flooring and the pantry on the right.
Same location, new doors.
New shelving.
And my personal favorite, a motion activated light inside the pantry. My husband painted and rebuilt the shelves in here. We are finishing up some additional floor storage.
These two pictures show what the wall that borders the living room used to hold. Because of the huge microwave storage shelf, the counter was virtually useless. We kept seldom used things under there. Note the soffit.
There's the fridge!
Old view.
New view.
The new configuration has the fridge on the living room wall with the stove moved down a bit. This allowed for a lazy Susan cabinet to be installed, a corner upper cabinet and a return in the corner that allows for more use. There is a very small 9" counter that separates the stove from the fridge, but we haven't really noticed that very much. Next to the fridge is an upper spice cabinet and a lower cabinet that is built to hold trays and cookies sheets. I love it.
Because we only had enough space for a 32" wide refrigerator, we had to forgo one that was counter depth. (We would have lost a lot of interior cubic feet.) So, our contractor came up with the brilliant plan to recess the fridge into the wall by turning the studs sideways. I think that this small improvement has made the biggest impact by making the kitchen appear wider. It still amazes me how much more room we have. They did extend into the opening to the living room by about 9" in order to accommodate all of the changes. Other than that, no walls were harmed in this remodel.
One of my favorite additions is the LED under cabinet lighting .
So there you have it. Our new, much more efficient and modern kitchen. We did not change any major structures, just redesigned things. I still can't quite believe it is ours.
Next time: the new bath!
No comments:
Post a Comment