BEFORE Kitchen Makeover - One Room Challenge Week 1

 

 

Hello everyone, I could not be more excited to be writing my first post about the Spring One Room Challenge! For those of you who are not familiar, twice a year Better Homes and Gardens runs the "One Room Challenge" which gives participants 8 weeks to make over a room in there house. 

I signed up for the Spring challenge hoping to makeover our kitchen during that time. We have been doing a lot of the background work on the kitchen for the last couple months since moving in. However we haven't gotten started, so I thought this was the exact push we needed. The kitchen is one of the most important spaces to us in a home, we spend a ton of time in there preparing meals and it is a busy space for our family. 

 

To start this challenge, we need to go over where the kitchen is now and our plans to update it. In this video below I walk you through the whole kitchen and go over our plans. Take a quick watch to see where we are starting. I will also go through it here. 

 

 

 

We bought this house in November and it was very much a 90s builder grade fixer upper. We did some work to other parts of the house before moving in but had not yet touched the kitchen. The kitchen itself is very 90s builder grade with orange oak cabinets, laminate countertops, white appliances, a fan, florescent light and floor tile backsplash. However the footprint and space is all there for us. It actually is very functional for our family, especially in comparison to our last home. 

 

Since the space is very functional but not aesthetically pleasing we are going to do a kitchen makeover but we will not be gutting the space. Here are our plans, possibly in the order we plan to complete them. 

• Paint Walls- Done before we moved in with the rest of the house
• Replace flooring- Done before we moved in with rest of the house
• Remove florescent light & fan, install can lights 
• Remove desk area and replace with a regular lower cabinet 
• Replace countertops 
• Take bar top to counter height
• Replace sink 
  
• Remove & Replace backsplash 
• Add center prep island 
• Swap for new cabinet doors
  
• Replace Appliances
  
• Remove above stove microwave, replace with vent hood 
• Add cabinet hardware 

Phew I think that's it, seems like a crazy lot when I see it in list form. However some of these will be done together and some a quick pieces once the others are done. 

 

 

To get to this point we have done several things and laid out the design vision for the space. Here is my original design inspo before we moved into the house. A couple pieces have been updated that I go over in the video but the design vibe and vision remain pretty much the same. Once we knew the design we were going for we went to pick out our countertops, tested paint samples of potential cabinet colors and got the materials for the kitchen island. 

 

Next on our list is having a team help us with the electrical for the lights and build a new cabinet for the desk area. Then we will be ready to have countertops installed. As part of that process they will take our bar top to counter height and replace the sink. So a lot will be done there all at once. They will also remove the current backsplash, or it will be done before the countertop install. 

 

During all this we will also be building our kitchen island for the center of the space and I will need to order the new cabinet doors as soon as possible since they will take awhile to come in, but those will go on toward the end once many of the other pieces are complete. 

After that we will need to pick and install a backsplash/ hardware and shop for new appliances. I am so thrilled to take you along this journey and I hope by the end of this challenge we will have a new beautiful and even more functional kitchen space for our family. 

Check back next week for updates! 

Emily