Here was our kitchen before. There was nothing wrong with it, but we felt that our house deserved a more modern kitchen that matched the feel of the rest of our rooms. We were in awe of all of the cabinets and storage options that IKEA offered, so we began planning. The walls and ceilings (which you can't really see here) needed a ton of drywall work, which Bo did himself. And he and his dad laid the gray floor tile. Such handy guys. It was pretty major stuff.
Here's the other side of the room, which we had recently updated with stainless appliances. We ended up gutting the entire room and starting fresh.
And here's what it looks like now. White with a nice color block of yellow and gray countertops.
Clean lines, white and bright.
We ended up abandoning our DIY self-poured concrete countertop idea after doing a little research and finding out that long-term, concrete can be a real pain. It can require re-sealing every 6 months or so. And it can stain, or crack. This information made us sad, since we really had our hearts set on the idea, but then we fell in love with Formica. If you haven't seen their
website/
gallery, you have to check out all of the custom options they offer. Formica is
cool. And it gave us the clean look we were going for.
One of our favorite things about this re-do is probably the simplest-looking; the high cabinet next to the fridge has become our new pantry and we're loving the pull-out storage. Love.
(And yes, we had to keep Gene Simmons at his post on top of the fridge. He's always been there.) Our other favorite feature on our cabinets and drawers is the quiet-close feature, which I'm sure you've seen in action if you've visited and IKEA show room. If you accidentally slam a door, it catches and closes it quietly. We added a white desk to the wall next to this one for our Mac to sit on, and we plan to add a glass tile backsplash in the next few weeks.
After all of the months of hard work that Bo and his dad put into this room, we can finally enjoy it and take it all in. We had zero outside hired help with this room, so we have a little bit of extra love for it. We're so incredibly excited that all of our dishes have been put away in their new homes and we're thoroughly enjoying our new kitchen with the bright sunny yellow cabinets. No one can steal my sunshine. ;)
