Before:
After:
Words cannot express how amazing it was to stand across the room and see through the entire kitchen! The best way to describe it is that it felt like I could breathe for the first time. Like my house could breathe, after being restricted for so long.
Remember how I said my pantry was along the wall we tore down? I moved everything except the bare necessities down to the storage room in the basement, and kept boxes in the office, which had to be covered to attempt dust reduction. With all of the cabinets removed, my plan was to use the oven/stove, sink, and fridge that were still there to make meals for my family. I found that soon there was too much dust, paint, sheetrock, dust, and more dust that even getting food out of the fridge felt gross. I never thought I would see the day I’d be sick of eating out, but we definitely got there! Soon the stove and the sink had to go anyway, so it worked out that we only ate out for two weeks. Still way too long!
This is the "fridge wall". We tore down a section of wall on the left side, next to the dining room. (you can see the drum light, and the lighter mud patching on the ceiling and wall) This opened that side up as well, making the dining area feel more a "part" of the kitchen instead of it's own separate room.
This is the view from above the family room. We tore out all the carpet, and put tile around the perimeter. This is just after the base has been put down, and tile came the next day. See the large box on the left with the light on top? Those are my new ovens. Yaay!!!
Funny story about the tile, though--we ordered the size to match what was already laid in the kitchen. See the stack of boxes by the ladder? Those are a full 1/4 inch smaller than the tile I ordered. We had a last-minute panic (one of those things you can't plan for!) and had to run down to a different tile store and find the right size. The only problem was it came too light, and too dark, but was the right size. I decided to get the too dark option, and it has blended quite well. I can see the difference, but it's not noticeable unless you look closely. I love how adding the tile perimeter has made the family room and kitchen more cohesive, like they were meant to be that way from the beginning.
This is the office, with bookshelves and computer desk covered with the blue and white, and my "pantry" boxes in the middle. Obviously no one is working when I took this picture, or all you'd see is tarps and bumps : ) We ended up painting the ceilings here and in the front room (not part of the original plan), but it makes a huge difference and I love it!
Other side of the office, looking into the entryway and front room. You can see more tarp usage here, railings covered, and front room full of furniture, including the mirrors from the family room wall.
If you look closely here, you'll see a 13-year-old's footprint or two in the wet mud, then onto the floor. We think he just wanted to preserve his shoe size for future anthropologists.
Remember this? It's the alcove above my fireplace in the family room. I removed all the arches in the entire house--this one, and the others were over the doorways in the office, entry, and front room. It was really a little thing, but it made those doorways seem bigger, more open, and again, felt like we had more breathing room! I made the alcove about two feet taller as well--you can see the old line in the picture on the right. I'm not an arch-style girl anyway, and it felt like it clashed with the contempo kitchen I was installing. I absolutely love them now!
My painters working on the alcove. They were fantastic! And yes, we painted it bright yellow. Wait until you see what I painted the dining room!
Cabinets coming in--hooray!! They sat in my garage for a couple days until the installers could come up, and it was so fun to walk around and identify exactly which cabinet went where. Because I lost so much storage with the wall out, I had to be extremely creative about where everything was going to fit in the new space. I used drawer organizers, cabinets to the ceiling, and pull-out cabinets to maximize my storage options. It is amazing what I can fit now, and find that I have space left over! Maybe I just wasn't that organized before because I didn't have to be : ) But I much prefer this way!
I had so many horizontal lines in my kitchen--the pulls, the grain on the cabinets, and the long parallel lines--I wanted to make the backsplash a little different. I made it higher than usual, so from under the hood it kept the same height all around, and turned the tile vertical. If you've been to the new City Creek in SLC, this tile is similar to what they have next to the elevators. In fact, I considered that tile but it was too wide and wouldn't give me the look I wanted. City Creek has good taste, though! ; ) I also put a small silver strip around the tile to finish it off. Love love love how this turned out! Note to self for future reference: because of our timeline, we put the tile in before the granite. It really didn't matter in the end, because we got the exact specifications on where to have the tile start so there's enough room for the granite, but it caused a serious panic attack when the granite came in and there was a large gap! I found out it wasn't that large, that it was actually quite normal-to-small, and after being filled in with grout like it was supposed to be, it isn't even noticeable. *sigh!* There is much to be learned on projects like this!
Tile is in! We did a little border on the left side there where it connects to the entryway, and blended it as best we could where I'm standing next to the kitchen. I love it!!
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