Sunday, December 19, 2010

the kitchen....is done

I thought our kitchen would take about 5-6 weeks to remodel, start to finish, and that everything would be nice and tidy by the time our friends came to visit over Memorial Day weekend...2010.

Wrong.  We just finished yesterday.  5-6 weeks turned into 5-6 months.

But, oh - what a kitchen!  Adrienne and I had no real vision for this space when we started.  It was an organic process and the end result is beautiful, functional, and about 10 orders of magnitude better than what we had.  Everything you see was our design, the work done by us with lots of help from contractors and uncles along the way.

The biggest change you will see is that the fridge and stove were bunched up against the soon-to-be unearthed brick chimney, while the sink and counter were back in the main kitchen space.  So we pushed everything back into that main space and transformed the area near the chimney into a bar.  The other major change was taking the washer and dryer out of the main kitchen space, replacing them with the fridge, and concealing the w and d behind the white folding doors.

One more thing...all of this was done in a way that Mother Nature would approve.  Countertops - recycled paper.  Sink - recycled copper.  Paint - no VOC.  Cabinets - reclaimed 100 year old fir.  Slate tiles - quarried and then re-landscaped with native plants.  Hardwood floors - refurbished as opposed to new.  Butcher Block island - reclaimed African hardwoods.  Hardware for cabinets - reclaimed from a  house demolition.  Window and doorway trim - compressed sawdust collected as a byproduct of sawmills.  Corkboard decoration - from our gallons and gallons of wine we've consumed, framed by unrepairable floorboards.  Pantry and shelves - FSC certified lumber.  And all of this was done with just a little thought and research and not a huge pocketbook.  I'm just sayin...

Important lessons learned:
- some of this was fun!
- most of this was frustrating!
- don't plan a wedding while remodeling your kitchen!
- timelines are mere suggestions!
- budgets are no more than a poor hypothesis of cost!
- create a bar in your house if you can!
- go the extra mile - its worth the effort!

We are totally stoked on how this turned out - way better than we could have imagined. Below is a photo-journey of this kitchen metamorphosis.

You can click on each of these pics for a larger view...





One of the first things we did was open up the wall between the dining area and the kitchen (now bar)

You can see the fridge and stove and small counter space occupying the space where we now have a bar

The Bar

Moving from the Bar into the Kitchen (note the old post in the middle of the kitchen that we replaced with a wooden beam - opened it all up!)

Old kitchen with washer and dryer acting as continued counter top space, now replaced with fridge and new island (washer and dryer are now behind the white folding doors seen in the above picture)

Back of the kitchen going into our room and out to our deck

Guest bedroom and bathroom doors off the kitchen

Long view of kitchen, bar, and out to dining area

Exposing the brick in our bar area

Progression of the floor in our bar area - there were about 7 layers of tar, marmoleum, linoleum, tiles, wood paneling (?), etc over the 100 year old wood floors

Flooring progression in the main kitchen and bar - more of the same from above, but we transitioned to laying down slate tiles

Installation of counters and cabinets