Kitchen Renovation, Part 1

This week Jeremy started our big kitchen renovation!!! We're both so excited, but considering how much time I spend in the kitchen every day I'm thinking I'm probably allowed to say that I'm more excited than he is.

This is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in last October...

Clearly outdated, but in good shape, right? Not exactly. Somewhere along the way a previous owner had done some hokey rearranging of cabinets to accommodate a dishwasher. A couple of the drawer frames were broken so the drawers would tip and fall out when you opened them. A few of the doors wouldn't stay closed. One even had velcro at the top to try and keep it closed! And that brick backsplash...yeah, it's faux brick and it had a chunk missing.

I was very thankful for a large kitchen, and it definitely worked well enough for us, but I was looking forward to the day we'd be able to update it, and that day has come!

This was the kitchen yesterday afternoon...

Wednesday after dinner Jeremy removed all the upper cabinets. And yes, that's a big whole in the wall. The contractor was here yesterday replacing our sliding doors.

This is what the kitchen looked like this morning...

Jeremy was excited to take a saw to the awful countertops.

For many months we have talked about widening the doorway from the living room to the kitchen because it's kind of a pinch point. It was our plan to do this whenever we renovated the kitchen. Then a few days ago Jeremy was feeling like it was too much to take on right now so he cancelled that plan. Well, you can see that tonight he decided it just had to be done and that poor wall didn't stand a chance.

And this is our kitchen as of about twenty minutes ago...

Tomorrow we've got some family coming to help for the day, along with their wives and kids. We'll have eight adults here and eight kids under age four. Should be wild and crazy, but hopefully productive and safe as well. The men are hoping to get the flooring down and the base cabinets and countertops installed. I'll take pictures!