Monday, February 27, 2012

My Opinion Monday - renovation realities

They don't show this stuff on HGTV so I'm going to show it here on my blog -mostly so my mom - hi mom! - can see the disaster progress that has taken place.

We start with a seemly normal kitchen, the standard 1995 remodel - navy blue was in during the 90's for sure (my mom's kitchen has blue accents too and a floor very similar to this one - which we both hate - seriously manufacturers, white flooring in a KITCHEN??? really though WHITE FLOORING?? what are you thinking? and what are WE thinking for even considering that as a choice?? but I didn't pick this, the previous owners did. phew!)

So here are the BEFORE pictures of this accidental remodel:

It's clean now...but just wait

A whole bunch of wasted space in my opinion...

Then I bought a couple shelves from IKEA and that's where this all stems from:
New wall color, new panel color - obviously
Even though I'd like to blame it on this:
"This is easy babe!" Um yes I know this is the easy PART.
It all sucks from here. Remember how I've done this before?
I just realized I didn't post that remodel of the Jefferson casa.
I came home to this the other night after work. I was less than impressed...but look at how nicely his pants match his "Palin Stanzi 2012" shirt! Luckily his parents were coming the weekend to help out. I'd seen his painting skills...they were best left on the golf course tee markers and such. I am uber particular, as is his mom, so I was awaiting her help with painting the cabinets. 

In the meantime, this is what the place started to look like:
No worries - the booze has not left the kitchen. 
You only get one picture, it pretty much sums it up. 

Then I bought some cabinets off Craigslist and things started coming together with the help of his dad:
The 2 smaller cabinets are upper cabinets so they built
a base for those, complete with a toe kick area. 

But first we had to do this:

Which sucked since we'd JUST painted all that damn trim. It's still behind
the cabinets though...well, behind the smaller cabinets I should say. 
And this is what we had before our ambitious evening: 
I need the doors to be back on. The 'open shelf' concept
will not work in this kitchen...at least this side anyways.
And without the backsplash now:
Looks better already!

And this - except these have been painted with the charcoal gray color that you see on the frames above:
The punching bag has gotten a bit of use during this project...but only
because I kept bumping into it by accident. And yes, it's from Goodwill too.
So there you have it.  The stuff they don't show on HGTV that all of us who have been through a remodel before has experienced. 

And if none of that makes sense, here's the color palette:




Imagine concrete countertops, a mable slab on the accent cabinets wall and some new flooring....and none of the mess!

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