The kitchen is completed! Last week the last details were completed on our 10-week long kitchen remodel project. We’ve been moving into the space and organizing the chaos very slowly in the rest of the house. It feels great to use the kictchen!

Here are three before and after photos to give you context of where we started and where we ended:

It’s hard to believe its the same house! Every morning I come into the space and am thankful we decided to go through the chaos so now we can enjoy the kitchen.

My favorite features are the built-in kitchen bar where we eat most of our meals, and the under-cabinet lights that look fantastic at night. All in all it turned out better than we could have expected.

Special thanks to my sister-in-law, Janet and our contractor, Joe for the great execution.

A few steps away from completion of kitchen and flooring!

Dishwasher was installed by the plumber Wednesday. He ran a rinse cycle when I happened to walk into the kitchen to test for leaks — I could not hear the thing running it was so quiet.

We also unloaded and took apart our refrigerator so that our neighbor and his son Miles (thanks guys!) could take the fridge body from the mudroom into the kitchen via our front door with an appliance dolly.

With the fridge in the kitchen, we cleaned, reassembled it, hooked up the water line and hey — we have all working appliances!

Flooring is finished as of today, and we now are awaiting trim installation over all the new flooring and against kitchen cabinets, along with a short punchlist of small tweaks to make (moving an outlet, installing a toilet, vanity, and mirror in the half-bath, etc.).

Looks like we ought to be fully completed before the end of July, which is far ahead of our original guesstimates. It feels great to see a project like this coming together.

We have grouted tile in the kitchen and just that detail of arctic white makes a huge difference. If you look closely you’ll see that our Ukrainian-made tile is designed so that the waves align — meaning if they’re set correctly they flow in waves across the wall. Pretty cool, eh?

The subtle waves are a perfect compliment to both the gray cabinets and quartz counter. We get the brightness to lighten the space and subtle shadows create a light pattern with under-cabinet lights on.

Kitchen Bar Stools

We’ve also found a set of medium gray leatherette bar stools for our kitchen-bar table area. Found these on Amazon for a good price ($200 for 4) and they’re comfy and seem pretty sturdy. They’re a perfect match for the darker gray cabinets the kitchen-bar table is built on.

Flooring

Finally, vinyl planking is done in the living room and dining room, moving to the kitchen, hallways, and half bath on Monday and Tuesday. Looks so great! Because the floors were pretty level, only subtle feathering was needed so that there will be no seams all the way from the back door to the bedrooms.

It’s uncanny how much this vinyl plank looks like real wood. It has a subtle distressed look and some of those knots in the wood — I’d swear they’re real until I touch them and they’re flat!

As the vinyl plank is installed in two rooms, we can see our choice of flooring is working as a pleasing contrast to the original honey-oak trim and to the new gray cabinetry.

We’re loving that all of these small decisions are creating a whole that is balanced, unified, and complimentary. We were hoping our choices were good when this kitchen was just drawings on paper — it’s really satisfying to see it all coming together.

We’re getting closer every day. We cannot wait to share the finished kitchen along with shots of the original for contrast.

We’ve got tile in place but scheduling dictated that grout will have to come next week. But it’s looking great!

The wave pattern has alignments so that the tile guys could line them up to make the waves flow across long sections of tile, which is extra cool. Been pleased with this Ukrainian-made matte tile and it’s going to look great with white grout in place.

Flooring

Now we’ve shifted to flooring through much of the first floor, starting with the living room and dining room, where most of the square footage is. Next up are the kitchen and hallways. The vinyl plank is looking great.

I had to pull up old Pergo and that was something else. Once we got it started it came up pretty quickly. Underneath the Pergo was some “gorgeous” Congoleum from 1978!

The new vinyl plank looks great and should be a nice contrast to the old trim.

One step at a time.

After a week of waiting and little activity, the countertops were installed this week. What a difference it makes with those in place.

Plumbing should be completed this week and we can start moving our kitchen from the dining room into the kitchen — with water, electricity and somewhere to prepare the food.

Flooring Chaos Ahead

Then we pepare for the next wave of chaos that is floor installation. We’ve decided to go with the same vinyl plank flooring starting in the utility room off the garage, through the kitchen, and into the livingroom, dining room, and hallway to the bedrooms — as all of those floors are ugly.

What this means is moving EVERYTHING from the living and dining rooms, washer and dryer in the utility room, into our family room or garage (save maybe a piece or two we can shift for the installer).

Basically, more chaos. But we know that in the end all of the chaos and disruption will result in a better living space for us for long-term enjoyment while it will increase the value of our home.

Here are some images with the new floor AR’ed into place with the LL Flooring app using photos above that gives us some idea of how the vinyl flooring should look:

Just a few more weeks to go!

Let there be light! Some fixtures, under cabinet lights, and outlets were installed by the electrician today. More to go in a week.

Flooring picked up today, here’s how it looks against the cabinets in place:

We’re now in pretty good shape as we await countertop installation later in June. Once that happens the plumbing and backsplash tiles can get done, along with electrical.

Drawer pulls look great in place and we’re going with a brushed nickel edging for the tile backsplash.

Backspalsh tiles we chose are white matte 4" x 16" subway tiles with a wave pattern we love, and bonus — they’re made in Ukraine. We’re changing it up with hexagonal tiles in shades of darker gray that pick up the tones in the counter for a square section right over the stovetop.

Kitchen fan unit installed and operates well, awaiting a microwave this week.

Some touchup paint needs to be done, half bath vanity built, toilet purchased and other small things.

Flooring follows soon after with vinyl plank chosen to bridge the color gap between old 1967 trim and new kitchen. We cannot wait to get rid of the old Congoleum and shabby carpeting in a few other rooms.

All cabinets in save the eat-in kitchenette that goes in today. Drawer pulls purchased.

Countertop measured on Monday, installed later in June. Once that’s in we can have plumbing and other stuff done.

I’ve been posting these images and notes to share the kitchen remodel process from start to finish — which I think is super cool. It’s a pain to live out of our dining room for a month but the long term results will be worth it.