The Joys of Our Life: March 2010

The kitchen remodel project is as good as done! It's actually not 100% finished (we still have light fixtures and a little bit of wood trim work to do), but it's basically finished! And I couldn't wait to share the pictures! We are lovin' it!! :)

Here's what the kitchen looked like when we bought the house (dark cabinets, blue curtains and yes, that's brown carpet on the floor).

We replaced the windows soon after we moved in, but the rest stayed the same...for four years...and I hated it...with a passion!

It was quite a process.... tearing off wallpaper, ripping out the carpet, sanding down & refinishing the cabinets, laying and grouting tile, sewing curtains and adding crown molding. We started at the end of November and just finished on Saturday - 3 full months! But it was worth it!

Here's what our kitchen floor looked like for about 2 months. We ripped out the carpet to see if we could use the wood floor underneath and found out that it was beautiful and intact EXCEPT (and it was a big except) for about 2 feet around all of the cabinets there was ply wood. So we knew we'd have to lay down another kind of floor. While we were deciding which kind we wanted to lay down we worked on the sanding job...wow what a job!

Here's the lovely two-tone paint that was underneath the wallpaper...

Here's an example of before sanding and after - the wood was beautiful and light underneath. It remains a mystery why anyone would ever want to cover that beautiful wood up with such a dark stain.

Here's some of the process sanding pictures to give you an idea what it was like before we stained.

We hung sheets up to keep the dust from going to the rest of the house. You can see all the dust on my camera lens - it was a huge mess!

Here's the mighty sander exhausted after a very full week of sanding!

Here's what cabinets looked like after we stained (before the floor was done)

We decided on tile so here's daddy laying the backer-board down with two very helpful boys handing him the screws. :)

AND FINALLY...DRUM ROLL PLEASE...Here's what the kitchen looks like now (You'll have to excuse the lovely green place where the dishwasher will be....someday...):