Kitchen: The Big Reveal

Here is the big "before" picture of our kitchen.  This is the picture that was taken by our cousins of the house right after we bought it (but had not seen it yet). 

This is about a month after we moved in and painted.  That curly board was taken down within two months of living here, but we took no pictures of the "before" kitchen without it.

Just before we began to renovate the kitchen, I put some frozen bananas on the counter to thaw.  Did you know bananas could stain?  Yup.  Turns out they can.  We need a new counter...

Tom got to work and took all the cabinets down in one evening.

When Tom started taking the cabinets out, we discovered the original flooring.

Cousin Travis came over and Tom and Travis were able to hang all the top cabinets in one Saturday.

Then we lived with a top half of an awesome kitchen and the old bottom part for a week before our friend, Jon, came to help Tom with the bottom cabinets.  Two of the cabinets broke in transit, so after the other base cabinets were installed, we had to wait five weeks before finishing up (one week of that was spent in Florida, luckily).

Once we returned from Florida to find the new base cabinets had arrived, Tom installed those and Travis returned to help install the 3/4" hardwood plywood countertops with 1/4" backerboard on top.  Tempting to keep all the counter space when you see how much it would be without putting the sink back in...

But then you remember you need a sink...

As I mentioned in a previous post, we wet-sawed in the blizzard the day before Easter when we broke the snow record and we finished installing all the tiles Monday and Tuesday after Easter.  Then we had to glue and clamp the front lip pieces (as pictured).  Then install the backsplashes, then seal the granite.  After 24 hours, we could install the sink.  Through the whole process, we were only without a sink for 9 days.  Pretty good, I would say.

DRUMROLL PLEASE:

Here it is.  We're obviously only done with "Phase 1" as the toe-kicks, and the range hood vent haven't been finished, and the floor and the appliances have not been replaced (except the new microwave), and of course we don't even have a light in the kitchen yet.  But it's heavenly.  And awesome.  And we've done so much cooking and baking in the past week (thanks to the sun being up from 6:20 AM-9:40 PM so we can see without having a light).

Good job Tom.  Special thanks to Travis and Jon for helping with the install.  And Law for truck usage.  And Taylor for babysitting while Tom and I cut and installed the granite tiles.