Thunderstorms inspire kitchen planning

Thunderstorms are beautiful, but they can halt painting the outside of a house pretty fast. So with a big storm moving through today it was a perfect night to start planning our kitchen remodel. If we stay on track with painting the exterior of the house we hope to start demo in the kitchen the first full weekend in August.

Here is a list of everything we want to do:

• Remove caked on wall paper
• Rip up the current mismatching white flooring, replace with porcelain tile
• Knock down 1/2 wall separating kitchen from dining room
• Remove cabinetry that needs to be removed (save to be repurposed)
• Paint existing cabinets white (sanding, washing, priming, painting)
• Add crown molding
• Add new lighting
• Rip out old counter tops and replace with new (possibly granite)
• Add tile back splash
• Replace all hardware (hinges, cabinetry)
• Replace double oven and electric range with gas range/stove
• Replace dishwasher
• Renovate the laundry room by adding shelving
• Replace laundry unit with front loaders
• Add built in hamper to laundry room and folding area with zip line for drying cloths
• Enclose laundry room with doors (currently wide open)

To save a little here we are planning to paint our existing cabinets white. My father will help us build any new top/base cabinets we may need and we will work with a local carpenter to match our existing cabinet doors, if needed. We will also be keeping our existing refrigerator. It is in great condition and does not need to be replaced, where as the oven, dishwasher, microwave, washer and dryer need to be. Marshall drew up these sketches to help us plan.

View of new kitchen from laundry room

View of new kitchen from dining area

View of new kitchen from dining room and entryway

I am most excited to brighten up our kitchen and make it a more open space to enjoy cooking and baking more than I already do. The overall look we are going for is classic and clean.

Our Fine House Gets a Makeover

Our first task is painting the exterior. When we purchased the house we noticed it was in need of a paint job, plus we wanted to change the color to something warmer. What does white really do for a house, especially one with a stone front?

We started planning for this in early July. We purchased sample house color, shutter color and door color and painted all the samples on the side and front of the house. Once we chose the color, we started prepping the house. For the first five days it was scraping and spot priming. During our lunch break at work we figured out the new downspout system, with frequent trips to The Home Depot. This last weekend we rented a power washer and gave the outside of our house a nice bath. On Saturday afternoon we were finally able to put some color on the front and we also got two coats of paint on the shutters.

The biggest paint chips ever...they actually look like states!

After work I cut this wall, it's ready to be rolled with paint.

Our Fine House

This is our very fine house. After we got engaged in March 2009, we thought we would jump into to owning a home (thanks First Time Homebuyer’s Tax Credit). It was definitely stressful planning a wedding and searching for the perfect house, but it was so worth it. We found our home in July, moved in and closed in October and got married in June 2010. We bought this house with many projects in mind and that is what we were looking for. Now that we are married and relaxed from our honeymoon, it is time to start those projects. We started this blog to share our progress with our curious family and friends.