House Renovation // Building our new kitchen

A few months ago I had a bunch of girlfriends over for drinks. As usual we all seemed to gather in the kitchen area. One of my friends commented on how much she liked all of the changes and decorating that Brent and I had done around our house. I mentioned we were thinking about renovating our kitchen. One of my lovely ladies looked up and said, “Ya, your kitchen really doesn’t fit with how nice the rest of the house is”. It was a compliment on the rest of our house but also a burn on our dated kitchen. It was a kick in the butt that it was time to stop ‘thinking’ about renovating and time to start actually renovating!

We decided to say so long to our oak cabinets, purple counters and a ugly flower backslash. And… we decided to do all the work ourselves! We worked with a kitchen designer at Lowes to plan out the layout and sizing of the new cabinet boxes. We chose a white thermofoil cabinet from Diamond Cabinetry in the Wallace style. We kept the same general layout, but decided to change out some lower cabinets for pot drawers, add a few extra inches to cabinets where we had some extra room, and add a built-in pantry to extend the cabinets on the right side of the fridge.

Our kitchen had one cabinet with a build-in microwave stand – we didn’t really have an issue with it, but the new cabinets didn’t have an option for that. Instead we decided to put in a full upper cabinet and get a range hood microwave for over the stove. It gave us more cabinet space and looks a lot nicer.

Oh, and how about that random almost cardboard pantry we have next to the fridge? Pretty swanky eh? We were so excited to swap out that eye-soar for a beautiful build-in pantry that continued all the way to end of the wall. 

Demo started with taking out the upper cabinets and then we removed the lower cabinets along the main wall. We left in the lower cabinets with the sink and dishwasher so that we could continue using the kitchen during the beginning of the installation. Since we were starting the install with the new uppers, the section with the sink wasn’t in our way at all. 

The new kitchen arrived and was stacked in the dining room. Essentially our main floor was full of boxes, drywall dust, random tools and an unimpressed cat for a little while. Knocking out the backsplash was fun and then we patched the drywall and sanded so it would be ready for the new tile later on. We made a little mess by the sink area (apparently my frustrated approach of smashing the tile with a hammer was a bit damaging to the drywall behind. oops). We had to cut out the drywall in two areas and place in a new piece of drywall (that we actually stole from the wall in our garage… don’t act like you’re not impressed – we are so resourceful).  We then taped over the seam and patched it up with drywall compound. 

Once we got the hang of hanging the upper cabinets everything cruised along pretty well. A few times we had to get creative and use our problem solving skills to get through an issue, but we are very proud of the fact all of them are level and will likely not fall down!

Brent and I are great at projects together, but like any other couple, we can sometimes butt heads. We communicate very differently and sometimes we are saying the exact some thing, but in very different ways. We agreed at the start of the project that if any point we were getting frustrated that we would just stop for a hour, have a snack (because changes are one of us was hangry) and come back with a fresh perspective. That plan served us well a few times and I am happy to report that building our kitchen was a happy and fun experience.

We decided on a 3×6 white subway tile from Rona. We were worried that the white tiles might just blend into the white cabinets, so we chose a silver grout to make them really pop. We used premixed grout and got cocking in the matching silver colour. 

It took 12 hours on a Sunday to do the entire backsplash. We rented a tile saw from the Home Depot and we were on a mission to get it all done in one day (even after the guide broke on the tile saw and all cuts required 2 people – that really slowed us down). We spaced the tiles with 1/8 inch spacers and we really love the look of the silver grout (it’s called silver – but really it is a medium grey colour). 

Okay… everyone ready for the finished product? Voila our new Kitchen! 

All of our turquoise and yellow accents really look at home next to the white cabinets.

The turquoise tins on the counter were a vintage find at a flea market and the yellow kettle I recently found at Home Sense.

I absolutely love the pot drawers! I believe that every aspect of my life has improved drastically since the addition of these suckers! (Maybe a bit dramatic… but you know what I’m saying)

And since every good DIY project needs a fabulous before and after….

xo Brittany