Kitchen Mission Complete

Updated Cabinets: $700

Updated Countertops: $600

New Sink: $100

Actually Liking Being In Your Kitchen: Priceless

When we decided to buy a house and started looking online, I saw ours and told John immediately "I like everything about it except the kitchen cabinets". My hatred for the cabinets only intensified when we moved into the house and so once I did some research and realized we could afford to do update it now, it had to be done. John really couldn't care less what the kitchen looks like, but since he realized that I spend a lot more time looking at it and in it, he agreed to help to make me happy. Knowing he really wasn't excited about the project I tried to take on as much of it as I could by myself, doing all the shopping and some of the labor while John was at work. So here is what our kitchen looked like before. This is actually the picture that the old owners posted online. I wanted to take some of my own "before" shots but the morning the people came to redo the countertops my camera battery was dead. No surprise there. The picture doesn't really show just how crappy the cabinets were but the doors are the cheapest laminate you can buy. Something you would find in an apartment and not a house.

After a lot of research we decided to reface our countertops instead of replace them. Mainly since we were essentially working on the type of budget you would see on an HGTV show about how to redesign as cheaply as possible. The company who did the countertops is called Miracle Method and I would highly recommend them to anyone who wants to fix up laminate countertops for half the price of installing new ones. I love my new countertops. The stuff they put on them really makes them look like stone. They bevelled all the edges, which makes a huge difference and of course the treatment hides all the ugly seams you usually have with laminate. The house kitchen was kind a disaster for about 2 days but it was worth it.

The biggest job for us of course was the cabinets. I was fine with the layout, but the color of the cabinets and the doors had to change. I found a place online that sells the same doors as Lowes and Home Depot but for WAY less. I saved about $300 by buying them online. Thank you refacedepot.com. (Maybe these companies should be paying me for my advertising. HaHa) So I took off the old doors and then John and I painted the cabinet boxes white. The painting actually went pretty fast since we weren't painting the doors. Hanging the new doors wasn't too bad either although I am pretty sure I won't be able to get John to agree to anymore projects for quite some time. When we finished I was all excited and I asked John what he thought and he said "They're whiter." So anyway, here is the new kitchen. I so so happy with the way it turned out. I really feel the kitchen looks more like a home now than an apartment. I might almost actually like cooking now. Well at least more than before.