Well I just arrived at my hotel in Atlanta and tomorrow starts my second Haven Conference. I can’t wait to hang out with all the awesome DIY bloggers I met last year — and meet a ton of new ones! But I promised myself that I would show you where I’m at with the kitchen renovation before I step foot out of this hotel room.
Actually, I told myself I couldn’t go to Haven unless I finished the kitchen. Which worked out well. I made a big push to get a few things finished this week and the kitchen is looking pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I will go back and give you details on how I made everything and stuff like that, but for now, you can just enjoy some pictures.
I snapped these pictures as I was running out the door for the airport, so don’t mind the stuff laying around. It’s been such a long time since I showed you the progress, I figured forget all the junk and just take the damn pictures.
Note the hole in the ceiling, which will eventually be some fabulous lighting solution. And the lack of toe kicks. I working on it. So far I have unwrapped the wood from the giant cardboard container. You’ll see it peeking into the dining room.
It was a complete gut job. I’m pretty sure everything is new except for the window. Everything else is new: the floor, appliances, Barker cabinets, half-wall turned eating area, french doors, lighting sink, concrete countertop, wood soffit, etc, etc. I did all the work myself, except for moving the plumbing and electrical, which were handled by professionals, and my husband helped with the demo.
This is where the half wall once stood. We tore it down when we were working on the family room renovation. (Post HERE) I used IKEA cabinets and built this new sitting area. It’s still missing one knob. Doh!
View from entrance hall into kitchen and out back door. Family room on the left. I built that step in this post. Yes, that’s my giant miter saw on the back porch. We cleaned the porch up in June, because I had been using it as my workshop, but we still haven’t set up a proper work area in the garage… So the saw had to go back on the porch. It works. My kids are phased in the least when I cut some wood while they’re eating dinner.
View from the family room where you can see the dining room beyond the kitchen. There used to be a wall there, which you can see coming down in this post. FYI – the magnet board will be covered with a door.
That island is obviously temporary. Those are two of the old kitchen cabinets. Some were moved to the shed but most were tossed out for bulk trash because they were just that bad!
Here’s more of the “refrigerator wall,” as we call it. Clearly I haven’t made up my mind about the molding on top. These are Barker Cabinets which come Ready to Assemble (RTA). Dude, it was a pain in the butt. I will write at least one post dedicated entirely to the cabinet buying process. 
Look you can see my teal suitcase all ready to go by the front door this morning. Yes, I match my luggage to my kitchen cabinets. Don’t you??? And do you store your tools in your dining room? All the cool people do!
Well I’m off to mingle…
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Read all about the family room and kitchen renovations below:
I like the teal! I don’t know why you were stressing about it–it looks good. Props to you for doing this on your own–you’re my DIY hero. Have fun at Haven, but not too much fun since I can’t be there with you. 🙁
You missed a good time at Haven for sure. I still think we should do a bloggers spa weekend and just focus on the socializing and forget the classes. About the teal… You like the trim around the magnet board? I don’t. But I do really like the teal cabinets.
Did you go with new tongue and groove boards for the half-wall seating area or is it reclaimed wood? It looks so good makes me wish I hadn’t let my mother in law raid my scrap wood pile and grab all the tongue and groove boards we pulled out of the basement to use in make DIY signs. I think the transformation is stunning. Also are the lights above the sink to help hide the bulkhead and HVAC? If so that is an awesome idea and really helps everything blend in.
Thanks Josh! Those tongue and groove boards are brand new so there’s no need to go chasing down your MIL. lol They are from Lowe’s. I just stained them with a bunch of different stains after I installed them. See, ‘half-wall seating area’ is so long, right? Why yes, that wood soffit was absolutely for functional purposes. The sewer line is up there and I wasn’t about to mess with that. It would have made me cry to put back a drywall soffit, so I came up with the idea for the wood one. It’s just wide enough to cover the pipe and leave room for the thinnest con boxes I could find to attach the lights. I looked into lighting forever before coming up with this solution. Originally I had planned to do small recessed lights in the soffit, but I didn’t like the way it was working out after I ordered them. Thanks again, and I’ll have some more specific posts coming up soon.
Your kitchen renovation looks really nice because it is your own design and it looks like it fits the rest of your home. We had to do something similar to our apartment and it turned out really nice. I was actually really impressed with the different kinds of renovations that you can do on a home.
this is fantastic stuff. any chance you have floor plans? I sometimes look at a feature and say “I wonder if that’s 15 or 18 inches between…”.
thanks, a fan in west philly
Whoops – I mean – you could * share * your floor plans/diagrams?
Hello – I am also going to use Barker Cabinets after seeing your posts. Question, Did you buy a dishwasher surround or just an end piece?
Also, the plywood 2 inch end piece boxes, did you order those for the ends of the pantry wall or make them and just do fillers in between? Thank you for your help!
I didn’t buy either from Barker, I made my own end piece. The ones from Barker are so expensive. There is no need for a dishwasher surround. And by making the end pieces myself I could ensure that they would all match. One of my end pieces is over 50″ long and would have cost a ridiculous amount from Barker. Note that their end pieces are not miter cut, simply a 2″ piece of plywood with edge banding for the face (why???) attached to another piece of plywood for the side. I used a solid piece of wood on the face and attached the same Purebond Plywood that Barker uses. One of these days I’ll write a full post about it…
How do you like your Barker cabinets so far? Looking for options other than IKEA
I like them, but they do have a few issues. So many more options than IKEA!! That was the main selling point for me. And IKEA doesn’t have the light/natural color wood interior anymore which is what I would want.