July 17, 2012
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The Kitchen Remodel
We’ve been dreaming of a kitchen remodel since we moved into this house, nearly 7 years ago. For someone who uses the kitchen as much as I do, this was a worthwhile investment! Because of my experience as an Interior Designer, I was able to serve as my own general contractor…this saved us lots of money! Here are the before and after pictures. I can’t believe how much bigger and brighter it feels!!
We removed this 24″ wall. It didn’t really serve a purpose.
I can’t believe how much it opened up the space! I can actually see the kitchen window from our living room now!
A daytime shot
The bar area may one day have bar stools.
The before kitchen had a solitary light fixture in the middle that hung so low, my tall brothers were always bumping their heads on it! We removed the fixture and instead put one over the sink, one over the bar, and six recessed lights in the ceiling.
We also set the cabinets back from the window by 12″ on each side. This opened it up a lot! Don’t crowd the window! We removed the soffit, which helped the ceilings feel much higher and not so shadowy.
Notice how short and stubby the upper cabinets look before? And also notice how the soffit casts a shadow on the ceiling, giving it a cave like feel.
Much better!! We don’t even own a set of every day dishes…we just use china. So it made sense to display the china in beautiful glass front cabinets
The fact that the fridge stuck out 13″ has always bugged me! So we decided to flip the layout of the pantry (shown here on the left) and the fridge.
Wow! We also widened the doorway by 10″. Much better!
Another shot of the obnoxious fridge.
and a cool shot showing that the fridge is now recessed to be cabinet depth
The pantry I gave up
And the much more functional pantry I replaced it with
Our old pantry had appliances all over the floor, because they were too tall for any shelf (or even the counters!) I specially designed this piece of cabinetry to include a place for every appliance. The doors slide back and reveal appliances already plugged in (I included four outlets…it wasn’t enough!) The counter is 30″ deep in this spot, so that I can mix, stir and assemble a meal completely in my ‘pantry’. The food storage is in the cabinets above and the spacious drawers below. Including cup measures, mixing bowls, spoons, etc. How cool is that?!! No more running to the walk in pantry for more cinnamon!! It makes life so much easier
The beautiful backsplash, made of Bottoccino marble and agean mist glass tile
The pan storage (and cutting boards, pizza stone, griddle etc) One of my favorite things!
Another shot of the backsplash? The new stovetop is gas. I believe the oven should be electric (because it is more precise than gas) and the cooktop should be gas. Wonderful cooktop! Cooks much more efficiently! The cool part is that if we ever lose power (ahem…in a hurricane?) we can still cook with a gas cooktop
Trash pullout! Very important! Trash in front bin, recycling in the back bin
A lazy susan in the corner cabinet…so nothing is ever stuck in the back!
Things should be stored right where you need them! I don’t want to cross the kitchen for a spoon to stir the soup, or a knife to chop the onions! This shallow drawer holds potholders, knives, spatulas and spoons. It was hard to get it to work with the depth of the cooktop. In the end, I bought the carpenter a Starbucks and he customized the drawer to fit
The dishwasher, hidden in the cabinetery. Might I mention that the new Bosch dishwashers are the quietest ever? We used to have to turn off our dishwasher to watch a movie or have a conversation in the living room. But with this new one, we can’t even hear it when we are in the kitchen!
Kitchens are all about the details
A close up of the corbels and the glass bead tile. Sigh. The kitchen is a dream come true
Comments (2)
Very nice!!! I’m glad you’re enjoying it so much. And, if I ever need to do a remodel of my kitchen, I’ll be calling you!!
I especially like the shot of the photographer in the picture of the recesssed fridge.
Beautiful! How could
you not LOVE that marble…big fan here
glass backsplash tile
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