Our Kitchens of Houses Past

Hey there! Yesterday I posted a few pictures to Facebook so i’m here to blog about it today (lucky you, ha!) Let me refresh you on a few fun little facts. In the past 5.5 years we have bought 3 houses and sold 2. All in different states due to transfers with the company that my husband works for. In both houses #1 and #2 we had beautiful, large kitchens (I’ll show before and after pictures below). House #3 is definitely lacking in the beautiful kitchen aspect. It’s almost as if they kind of forgot about it it and threw something together in our opinion.

Let me show you (these pictures were taken when we were looking at the house and before all of our crap cluttered it up!

Notice stainless dishwasher, stainless fridge, black oven

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Missing over the range microwave! Just a beautiful piece of metal (ga!!)

The cabinets are solid oak and actually really pretty…but it’s not what’s “in” anymore so we’re planning on rebuilding all new cabinets and painting them white (we’re not into the way painted oak looks, so we will rebuild by hand)  *we are not experts at knowing exactly what is in, but with a track record of selling our past houses on the 8th and 1st showing I think that we’ve got a pretty good idea I(‘m a snot)

Gold knobs = eek! (so dated and the house is only 8 years old)

Nice ceramic floors but those too are subject to being ripped out and replaced

The teeeeeniest little pantry – which will probably be relocated and made larger

Here’s a glimpse at the dining room. It’s pretty and fancy…totally opposite of the kitchen, hence why I said it seems like they forgot about the kitchen when building.

Anyway, I posted a few pictures on Facebook yesterday …

Picture #1:

And then I added two pictures saying “out with the ugly, in with the pretty”

aka the ugly stove

aka the pretty one!

Now…I did not mean to offend anyone by calling their stove ugly nor do I even really think the black stove is THAT bad. BUT, in my house it is THAT bad. The rest of the appliances are stainless so this guy just stuck out looking like a misfit.

Since the oven is an in-the-wall oven/microwave we had to purchase a separate cook top…

(Horrible dusty picture)

We are currently working on installing and wiring a whole new circuit (aka all new wiring from the circuit breaker box to the kitchen) because the black stove = 1 appliance plug, now the stainless one = 1 appliance plug AND the cook top = 1 appliance plug (so we’re one short). Thankfully my dad, an electrician, has been in NC for work and is visiting us so he’s pretty much in charge of the electrical stuff!! Gotta love dads!

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As I mentioned before, I’d show pictures of our previous kitchens. Enjoy!

House #1 (sold on 8th showing)

Before: (excuse all of the junk everywhere from when we were moving in) *we redid this kitchen all by ourselves = $3,100 for everything (even including the paint, sandpaper, etc **this was also back in the day when granite was over $50 per square foot)

Oak cabinets – great shape, ugly color. Lattice above cabinets = gag

We bought this fridge

Apparently we had already started working on the walls in this picture

Ugly light

AFTER: 

We stripped and stained every single one of the cabinets. New light fixture, new granite counters, new faucet, new travertine backsplash, removed lattice – added crown molding, al new stainless hardware for cabinets, updated dishwasher (***tip, the dishwasher was black originally. We removed the front panel and cut a piece of sheet aluminum/flashing (bought in rolls at Home Depot) for $10), painted all trim white, replaced linoleum flooring with laminate wood flooring

Black granite Double Bowl sink (and added a disposal).

Added stainless range hood, extended the bar and added the support baluster

Moved all of the cabinets and stove down to the right a bit. Built an enclosure around the fridge (so you didn’t have to look at the side of it…I don’t have a picture though, sorry) and pulled the cabinet above the fridge out so it was accessible.

Sweetest little baby girl – we did all of this before I got pregnant with her

Painted walls, added crown molding, painted trim, new light

Isn’t it amazing what a little hard work and a few $ can do?!?! I LOVED this kitchen. OK, I LOVED the house. I want it back. We were at this house a little over 3 years and in that time (before both baby #1 and #2 were born) we made that house our home. I will forever love it. (plus we had 2 acres so the dogs were in Heaven)

House #2: (sold on 1st showing)

HUGE kitchen. It was really pretty and obviously move in ready. All we did was paint the walls. Funny enough, as nice as it was, the cabinets were never my “color”. But we were only there just under 2 years when it sold so there was no way that we were going to redo this one!

That exterior door was a walk out balcony = loved!!!

As you can see, it was huge!!! I had counters from here to California! Glorious!!

Anyway, now you can see why the kitchen in house #3 now is just not cutting it for me. We’ve got grand plans (all of course which will be carried out by us) over the next year or so. I’m due with baby #3 in less than 3.5 weeks but my midwife thinks I’ll deliver in about 1.5 because I’ve never made it to a due date yet! Plus Lover Boy is realllly busy in his 2nd year of his MBA program. Sooo….like I said, over the next year or so! 🙂 probably a little at a time.

I’ll keep you updated along the way!