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You are here: Home / Renovations / Sneak Peek: Almost Finished Kitchen

Sneak Peek: Almost Finished Kitchen

August 4, 2016 by SmartGirl 11 Comments

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.

Benjamin Moore Teal Ocean cabinet paint

Smart Girls DIY kitchen makeover

Kitchen window wood soffit blanco sink

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!Smart Girls DIY - half wall made into cabinet storage with bar top

DIY halfwall bar

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.

New Pella French doors as part of DIY kitchen remodel

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.Smart Girls DIY almost finished kitchen remodel

Smart Girls DIY Kitchen renovation - view into the dining room where there was once a wall

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.  Side panel is not finished and I don't like the teal paint trim

DIY kitchen remodel with Barker cabinets

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!Current kitchen view complete with tools in dining room and temporary island

Well I’m off to mingle…

You can keep up with me here: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest / YouTube

Read all about the family room and kitchen renovations below:

Kitchen Dilemmas

Kitchen Demo – Round 1

Don’t Try To Renovate Your Kitchen Over Christmas

How to Update Recessed Lighting to LED

Kitchen Demo – Round 2

Installing Pella French-Door-Style Patio Doors

Installing Hardwood Flooring in the Kitchen

Sneak Peek: Almost Finished Kitchen

Designing My Kitchen Layout and Selecting Cabinets

Ordering Barker Cabinets – part 1

Ordering Barker Cabinets – part 2

Designing a Pantry Wall with Barker Cabinets

How to Build a Pantry Wall with Barker Cabinets

Hide the HVAC with kitchen cabinets and say goodbye to your soffit

How to Customize Kitchen Cabinets to Hide the HVAC

Barket Cabients -- issues with the wall oven

Adding Support to Barker Cabinets so They Will Hold a Wall Oven

Barket Cabients -- painting doors and drawer fronts

Painting Barker Cabinet Doors

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Filed Under: Kitchen Renovation, Renovations Tagged With: Barker Cabinets, before and after, kitchen

« Installing Hardwood Flooring in the Kitchen
My Second Trip to Haven »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sharon says

    August 5, 2016 at 12:01 am

    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. 🙁

    Reply
    • SmartGirl says

      August 9, 2016 at 11:54 am

      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.

      Reply
  2. Josh Barron says

    August 8, 2016 at 11:27 pm

    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.

    Reply
    • SmartGirl says

      August 9, 2016 at 12:01 pm

      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.

      Reply
  3. Charles Kemp says

    August 11, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    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.

    Reply
  4. conrad says

    December 7, 2016 at 5:26 pm

    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

    Reply
  5. conrad says

    December 7, 2016 at 5:26 pm

    Whoops – I mean – you could * share * your floor plans/diagrams?

    Reply
  6. Kelly says

    May 6, 2017 at 5:10 pm

    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!

    Reply
    • SmartGirl says

      May 11, 2017 at 3:49 pm

      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…

      Reply
  7. Shannon says

    November 3, 2017 at 8:46 pm

    How do you like your Barker cabinets so far? Looking for options other than IKEA

    Reply
    • SmartGirl says

      December 1, 2017 at 9:57 am

      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.

      Reply

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