Kitchen Renovations!
What with the 15% tax credit by the government this year, the coming birth of our second child, and a vastly useless kitchen, we’ve decided to go ahead and renovate this fall.
Our current dining room will become the kitchen, our current kitchen will become the dining room. The current wall between the two will be mostly torn down, allowing for a beautiful flooding of light from a massive south-facing window into the new kitchen space. Then, we will be tearing out a portion of wall between our living room and the soon-to-be dining room - a portion that, if looked at in the right light, you can tell was drywalled in and used to be a double door opening.
I’m so darn excited!
We have chosen oak inset face frame, raised panel cabinets like those below (with concealed hinges) in a stain that is a similar shade to our beautiful hardwood floors.
We aren’t yet sure what we’re doing for our countertop and/or backsplash, as we would like to go with either a natural stone or solid surface - neither of which we can really afford right now. We were thinking of using Paperstone, but the colours are just too dark for our small space and dark cabinetry. We may just put down plywood for a year or two. Either way, we’ll likely stick with a neutral light colour similar to our flooring. My favourite colour of Corian solid surface countertop is Granola (pictured left) … I think you all know why! We may, though, go with a more solid colour so as not to take away from the effect of the wood and to bring the room in (as per Brad’s brother Dave’s advice).
For our flooring, we’re likely going with Torly’s Cork Flooring, likely in the colour Burl Sand Stone (pictured right), which in the Torly’s catalog looks fantastic next to white trim.
So that’s my current update! We’re not yet sure exactly what things are going to happen when, but we’re in the process of thinking about it!
Nicole said,
August 24, 2009 @ 7:59 am
Sounds good, big work though! Will you get professionals to do most of it or do some of it yourself too? The kitchen really is the most important room in the home, I could sleep in my new kitchen if I could its so darn pretty LOL
kim said,
August 24, 2009 @ 9:25 am
LOL - we’re getting a professional to do the structural work (have to put beams in and two concrete pads in the basement) and the cabinetry guy will be installing the cabinets … otherwise, we’re doing it.
Jessica said,
August 24, 2009 @ 10:30 am
awesome!! that is so exciting
we won’t be doing ours for another 5 yrs ish is the plan 
Sarah said,
August 24, 2009 @ 10:53 pm
YAY!!!!!!!
Very smart to do another room…that way you still have your old kitchen while the work is going on.
I love the cabinet doors!!! Very nice!!
If I were you and couldn’t afford the counter tops yet, I would just do something cheaper and redo them later. Plywood is not a good option for three reasons….1 it isn’t a finished surface so water will damage it, especially since it is a kitchen. 2 you really can’t work on plywood…dangerous because of the slivers of wood that could end up in your food. 3 cleaning it is going to be a PAIN!!!!!!
Maybe you could do a simple cheap tile, or even a simple cheap laminate surface until you can replace it later.
kim said,
August 25, 2009 @ 12:55 am
LOL - not smart - a necessity! The current kitchen is very obviously the original dining room and it makes so much more sense to go back to that.
See, the problem with ’something cheaper’ for countertops is that the cheapest is over $600 (that would be a plastic laminate countertop). $600 seems like a lot of money to waste in a couple of years!