Updating the Kitchen Part I

Before – Cooking Area

I’ve been incredibly anxious to start the kitchen update in our new home for over a year now. Since our house was a short sale, it took over 6 months for us to close on it (silly us we thought short sale meant “short time” to close!). Then the money we had saved for updates had to be spent on other essential repairs because our home had set empty for nearly 3 years. We never realized just how much could go wrong in a empty house.

Before – Prep Area

Before – Dining Area

But last week, the kitchen update finally began! We had granite installed as the first step to our  kitchen update. We decided to keep our cabinets, even though they’re from 1975. They were top of the line at the time, and I actually can’t find anything wrong with them (except for maybe that curve in every door, but I’m sure I won’t notice it once I get everything else done I want to d0). I love my pull out pantry. I love the arrangement of the drawers. And I especially love the layout. And did I mention the solid wood part? I just can’t let them go.

It was a mess, but only for a day.

See that hint of green from where the stove was? It’s green carpet. This kitchen use to have carpet. And that stripped baby blue wallpaper above? Isn’t it funny how styles have changed!

Anyway, here’s the after: Isn’t that better? I loved the granite we picked out. It’s a little darker than I anticipated, but I do love it, and we managed to save so much on the granite, we also had the wet bar, the laundry and a bathroom “granited” too.

This was just phase one! There’s still lots more to come with this kitchen update. A few of the other things we want to do are to refinish the cabinets to a much darker walnut finish with a shinier polyurethene to make them a bit more modern (or maybe refacing, not sure). We also want to update the cabinet hardware, paint a more flattering wall color, oh and of course re-tile (note the missing floor tile near the wine cooler, lol)!

Decisions, decisions, right now I’m trying to find a good floor tile. Here’s some of the samples I’ve brought home over the past few days. 

The company that did this installation was Professional Flooring of Apopka, Florida. I received no compensation or discount for product or services from them based on this site.