Kitchen Reno - Cabinet Craziness

Well, we've had some fun around here in the last few days.  
Friday morning the cabinets were delivered.  I should have taken a picture because it was a really impressive stack of boxes in the garage.  See that word "was" in that last sentence.  Yeah, the stack of boxes is gone.  I know what you're thinking, "boy that was fast!"  and it totally was because Saturday morning Jason's brother, Kevin came!  
Cabinet weekend was 2 long days of cabinet hanging excitement here.  Kevin, who is a carpenter and has done this stuff before many times, was able to lend his expertise.  We'd have been up a creek without his help.  
At the end of the first day they had all the wall cabs and half the lower cabinets hung on one wall, including the crown molding.  One thing to note (that I didn't know before) is that if you're doing crown on your cabinets, you probably need to add a nailer to the top of the cabinet boxes so you have something to attach the crown molding to.  Once the moldings are in place, you won't see the nailer at all.

Here's a progress pic from early on Day 1:

And at the end of the second day they were done!  The days were long (Sunday night ended at 10:30 PM - sorry neighbors!) but in just 2 days, the two of them completed work that would have taken WEEKS with just Jason and I to work on stuff on Saturdays and Sundays.
Before I show you how it's looking now, let's take a look at what it looked like when we bought the house...

And here it is now...

Note that none of the doors are on right now - we decided to leave them off until after the counter tops are done.  I don't want to risk a ding/scratch in a door during that whole process.


I'll have more pics once things are more done (counters & doors & drawers and whatnot).

Side note - if you do find yourself with a lot of boxes like we did - you may want to also get a big roll of tape and let/help your kids to build a cardboard castle.

Kitchen Reno: The Design Process

I'd like to take some time here to tell you about the design process we have gone through over the last few weeks.   It actually started a lot earlier with me daydreaming about the kitchen, thinking about what I liked about the kitchen (not a lot) and what drove me crazy.  Also, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted my new kitchen to look like and finding inspiration on Pinterest and other blogs.   Things that made me crazy:

• Placement of the fridge.  It was right up against a wall which meant that the fridge side of the appliance wouldn't fully open.  In truth, it annoyed me to no end so it HAD to change. 
• Trash out in the open.  I don't want to see a trash can.  Ever.
• Cookie Sheets.  I bake and need a good vertical storage space for my stuff!  

How I want my kitchen to look: Light & Airy  Check out a few of my "Inspiration Kitchens": Young House Love's kitchen:

And I have to mention the Bower Power Blog kitchen:

With these ideas in mind we started perusing cabinet options at places like Home Depot and Ikea.  And really, it's tough to get a good sense of cost from these places without really sitting down and talking to someone.  Ikea has a ton of options, but there were a few things I though we absolutely needed for our layout and they weren't options there, so Ikea was quickly eliminated.  Home Depot was a contender until I got a recommendation for a local kitchen/bath place.  

I made an appointment there to spend an hour or so with a real kitchen designer, Melissa.  Armed with measurements for our space and a few "must haves" she quickly clicked in a design for our kitchen.  It was amazing.  Our kitchen is a small space, but Melissa's years of experience helped her come up with a functional design that maximized work space, fixed our fridge problem, and included a pantry cabinet.  

We're set on the design now (hardware & counter top are still up in the air), and I couldn't be happier.  I can't say for sure that we wouldn't have been happy with a HD kitchen design (honestly we'd probably end up with something very similar), but I know that Melissa has a degree in interior design, 7 years of experience at this company, and has designed literally HUNDREDS of kitchens.  Throughout the whole process she asked me questions and made suggestions on how to save money, consider different options, and that really helped me feel more confident in the choices we made.  I'm sure that we paid more this way, but worth it in the long run, I think.