This is part of a little series called Heardmont History. We’re digging back through our archives and highlighting some projects we did before starting “Welcome to Heardmont.” Hope you enjoy!
Yesterday you saw how far our hallway has come, and today it’s time to see the kitchen. This is waaaay later than I usually post (sorry about that, guys), but it’s been one of those days. Better late than never, I guess!
Here’s what our kitchen looked like the day we bought our house.
Dark wood cabinets, gothic pulls in the center of the doors (who DOES that?), old appliances, laminate counters and floors, and the list goes on…
That white fridge was the culprit I mentioned in our How to Clean Stainless Steel post. The one that lasted less than a year after we bought our house? Yeah.
Here’s a view you don’t often see of our island. Look at how grungy and gross those doors were! Take special note of the WALL you see beyond the island in this photo. We took that baby out within 24 hours of closing.
The previous owners of our house were both professors. The husband was a chemistry professor, but if you look closely at this photo, you could probably have guessed that. Check out the chemistry-class-style electric pole he ran from the ceiling to the island to power the microwave!
As I mentioned above, we tore out the wall between our kitchen and dining room the night we closed on the house. Here is Stephen starting the demolition.
This is the first view we had through the wall into the kitchen! (In case you’re wondering, originally there was only been a small doorway connecting the two rooms.)
Demolition is dirty business, but you can already see how much visual space we were gaining!
The next morning we finished removing the studs. Here’s a great shot of that electric pole I mentioned.
I stayed home from work that day and cleaned up the mess we’d made. Here’s the new view from the dining room (my back is to the living room) into the kitchen. Look at that sweet fluorescent light! 😉
The next phase in the remodel was painting the kitchen cabinets. First we removed all the doors and primed the bases.
I think we were about halfway done with the priming when we realized it would be a good idea to scrape the popcorn off the ceilings BEFORE our cabinets got fully painted.
We knew we’d be replacing the fluorescent light, so it was the first thing to go, along with that lovely chemistry power pole to the island.
If you’ll recall, this was about the time that THIS occurred.
Stephen stayed home from work one day and surprised me by texting me this photo. New can lights, hooray!
Because we like roping people into renovating with us, we convinced our friend Casey to help us scrape the popcorn off the ceilings when she was over one night.
The three of us worked for several hours and only got the kitchen ceiling done. At least we were still smiling at the end!
Even raw drywall looks better than popcorn ceilings!
I covered up the old electrical holes and did some spackeling and then we primed and painted the ceiling. Ahhhh smooth as butter. 🙂
If you’re really good, you might notice the little brown chair I reupholstered for my craft room. This was back when we used it as a step stool haha…
Now I have to admit that getting from the photo above to where we are today took a long time. Sure we cleaned up the dust, but it took us a while to paint and rehang the cabinet doors and to put other finishing touches on the room. Of course I don’t have any photos of that process… I think I’m in denial that it ever happened!
Regardless, that brings you up to speed on what we’ve done so far. Welcome to our kitchen!
We love our light, bright, and open kitchen. You’ll remember the bar stools I bought on Craigslist.
I’m especially loving this side of the kitchen now that I actually know how to keep our stainless appliances clean.
The range is the only appliance we have left to replace. I don’t really mind it not matching for now – it gets the job done.
Here’s our little coffee station by the fridge. The Heards platter was a wedding gift and it’s excellent for serving cookies at parties!
You’ll notice we painted the island white. We also added beadboard underneath the counter to cover up the vents that had been cut for the microwave.
Here’s the same view you saw of our island back when the wall was still up. Now instead of a wall, we have a pretty white beam between the kitchen and dining rooms. We use the old microwave nook in the island for pot lids and a hand towel.
Our current hand towel is pretty much the most awesome one we’ve ever owned. Our friend Nolen’s mom made this one for us as a Christmas present! It says Heardmont – isn’t that great?
So that pretty much wraps up the tour of our kitchen as it looks today. Like the hallway yesterday, we have things we’d still like to do in here.
Stephen “absolutely hates” (YES that’s actually a quote) our current island, so once we find a good replacement, it’ll be getting the boot. Sooner rather than later we’d like to replace the laminate flooring (when we do the rest of the house), and down the road we’ll be picking out new countertops and backsplash!
And because I had so much fun making that “accomplishments” photo from our hallway yesterday, here’s one for the kitch.
Thanks for stopping by! Tomorrow is another crazy day with work, so check back for a quick tip on how I made something I used for staging the kitchen today. Hope you’re enjoying this series – Heardmont History will continue next week!
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