Our Kitchen Remodel...Cabinet Refacing

Hi everyone!! I know that all of us who are home owners go through different stages of remodeling over the years. The one common factor among all of us is...MONEY!! Our home was built in 1975 and remodeled by the second owner in the 80's. We bought it in 1993. We loved the layout and flow of the floor plan, but we knew it needed work.  Changing it to our own design style would take time and money. Courtney was 2 years old and Kelsie was just 6 months, so not only was money a factor, time was the biggest with 2 little ones.

Unless you build your own home, buying an older home is never exactly what you want. You can change it to suit your own design style, but it will either take "money" to pay someone to do it or "time" to do it yourself. We changed the colors, removed wallpaper in every room, bathroom remodels and flooring ourselves over the first few years, slowly but surely.  The kitchen, however, was always my top priority.

Then life goes on...and on, and on. That chuck of money was just never there for the kitchen. In 2004, we added 2 big additions to our home so my parents could move in with us. We took care of my mom for just 3 years before she passed away from Parkinson's Disease. My dad is still with us. The kitchen needed to wait again.

Twenty years after moving in, Courtney has graduated from college and Kelsie has one more year to go. The reality is we will never have a chunk of money to do the kitchen, but if we ever want to down size in the future, the house will not sell with a 1985 kitchen.

We bit the bullet and finally did something this past February. It was NOT a total gut of the kitchen, because that was just beyond our means. We elected to do cabinet refacing and are SO HAPPY we did. It's not a DIY project, but I wanted to share.

Here is the AFTER of our kitchen...

Here's the BEFORE, the night before the contractors came in to do the demolition.

I pulled out my "inspiration book" of magazine clippings and realized that over many many years, I had  only ripped out pages of white kitchens with black counters, shaker style cabinets with half moon stainless steal pulls. The design part of it was easy for me. I knew what I wanted.

Money was still an issue and we couldn't go crazy, so we didn't do granite. We changed the island to 4 feet by 8 feet wide and the back counter is over 12 feet long, so with that much granite, it's was out of the question...maybe down the road. (famous last words, Lol)

Here are more before and afters. The before pictures are right before demo, so don't think my counters were ever this bare. Lol

The old cabinets were off-white Formica with the 1980's oak trim. Years ago, I painted the oak trim to blend in with the cabinets. The baby blue counters, well...I had to live with them. Just not my color.

BEFORE...

Our kitchen is in the center of the home...family room addition off to the left and dining room eating area off to the right. We knew we had to do white cabinets with no windows in this room.

AFTER...

The BEFORE...

The box over the island in the ceiling was put in by the previous owners. The depth of the old ceiling wouldn't fit pot lights, so they built the box to hold the pot lights.

I wanted that box gone, but that was another cost issue with removing the ceiling and electrical. Not happening. They did cover it with the same cabinet material and added crown molding.

AFTER...

We had some white appliances already, knowing we were going to switch to white cabinets at some point. This big old hood over the stove had to go. It didn't even work, because the second floor addition we added above it, cut the vent pipe!

I never had a microwave over my stove.

BEFORE...

Until now!!! There was some construction above the stove and with the island, so this wasn't just a refacing job.

AFTER...

The OLD island was my nemesis. The previous owners had a very formal living room adjacent to the kitchen, so the high wall on the island was there to "hide" the messy kitchen.

The lower counter was fine when the girls were little, but not great to eat at now.

BEFORE...

I had them cut down the high wall and left the base cabinet. I wanted a big island and 4 feet by 8 feet fit perfectly!!

As a side note...I didn't want high backed stools, because I didn't want them to block the view of the kitchen and these stools tuck right under the counter out of sight. The stools are form Walmart $29.00 each!!

AFTER...

This lower cabinet corner was drawers before.

Now it's my first Lazy Susan. I LOVE IT!!

Here are the Shaker style cabinets and the black Formica counter. The counter is such a close look to granite it's crazy.

We took out our old wall oven and added a brand new one.

Finally, my favorite half moon drawer pulls I've loved my whole life.

Here's the demo process and putting it back together.

All doors and drawers are thrown out. They make everything new to fit your kitchen!!

They cut off the lower table on the island and started to strip off all the old Formica on the base cabinets and all the uppers.

This company, based out of Massachusetts was awesome. The cleaned up every night after they were done. This is a picture of what it looked like each night when they left.

We had Formica on ALL surfaces of the kitchen, so they had to stripped it. If you have wood cabinets, they would just laminate right over it.

The high wall of the island still not cut down yet. We had an electrician come in to move the plugs and light switches to the lower part of the island.

Here is the base of the island cut down and new white laminate added.

New cabinet doors on the uppers and some lowers.

The lower left cabinet still needs white on the stiles and rails.

Drawers and doors slowly going on.

Island top on, but no sink yet. We used our original sink, because we had just purchased it about 2 years ago.

Here it is all back together in 6 days.

We had 2 awesome men working on our project the whole week. They were great. Best experience we ever had.

They did say it was one of their bigger projects. Most average refacing kitchens jobs would take 4-5 days, but we had some construction and electrical work.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our new kitchen. It's 20 years over due, but well, worth the wait!!

Have a great day,
~Karen~