The Kitchen.Is.Done.
Ok, here we go.

This is the original kitchen. The full extent of the countertop is what you see here, and a little farther on the right, just covering the dishwasher. That was it.
The oven was so small that you could not fit a full-size cookie sheet in it. The stove, as you can see, had a (mostly worthless) jenn-air grill on one side, and 2 crappy electric burners on the other side.
The cabinets were original. Painted, but still old. The drawers stuck, and the maddeningly, the sink was not centered under the window. It’s hardly the worst kitchen in the world, but we had completely remodeled the kitchen in our old house, so this was a step backward, and we lived with it for nearly 8 years.

Here is the stainless prep table we used for extra counter space and a breakfast bar for the kids. I got this last summer and it significantly improved the functionality of the kitchen. In fact, I loved it so much that I said I would not be willing to put in a new kitchen unless we included an island/breakfast bar area.
The refrigerator was sitting in front of the original exterior door, which was redundant, since somewhere along the way a sliding door had been installed in the dining room (just feet away, as you can see). This allowed us to put in a cabinet to use as a pantry.

As you can see, due to very limited storage space, we had stuff sort of packed in all over the place. This side of the kitchen was basically empty. A neighbor has this same setup, and they have a small table and chairs in this space, so I guess it was originally intended to be an eat-in kitchen.
I made a short video of the project from start to finish.
You can also visit the entire Flickr Photo Gallery with even more photos.
And here we are, all finished!

Oak Flooring, Ikea Abstrakt White Gloss Cabinets & Black Walnut Countertops
Let’s walk around the kitchen…
This is the Ikea Praktfull Pro A51 Gas Range
Backsplash is a stainless steel panel we ordered & had cut/bent to fit
Dishwasher is a Whirlpool we bought several months ago
Open shelving are Ikea Brackets w/Custom black walnut shelves
Light over sink was a vintage find from the Boomerang Room

We did not buy a new sink. I liked our old sink, and although undermount/single bowl sinks are all the rage these days, I just couldn’t justify a new sink since I always liked this one. It ended up looking really great.
Faucet is Kohler Simplice and I LOVE it.
Fridge is Whirlpool-made Ikea counter-depth fridge. Also, LOVE.

Lighting over bar is Murray Feiss Beso Mini Pendant
I am planning to get a Charley Harper print for the wall above the bar.

Pantry cabinet with pull-out drawers. LOVE.

Pull out trash & recycling? LOVE.
Also, this is a good shot of the gorgeous grain in the black walnut. We ended up treating them with polyurethane instead of mineral oil. I could not fathom cutting on this gorgeous wood, so we do use cutting boards and treat them like a tabletop. They are so beautiful that I don’t mind being a little extra careful with them.
I don’t know if I mentioned this in a previous post, but we were incredibly lucky to happen to start this project just as Ikea had it’s 20% off kitchens sale. Doing a little bit of the work ourselves helped, too, as well as the incredible price we got on the countertops. (Thanks, Joe!!) Our budget was quite tight for a total remodel (about 16K of equity) and incredibly, we went over by less than a thousand dollars.
This project was fun, stressful, and ultimately extremely rewarding. Not only do I get to live with this kitchen every day, I get the satisfaction of knowing that the I did 100% of the design and layout. I tweaked our plan SO many times and worked through every potential problem to come up with the perfect layout for us, and so far I do not have a single complaint.
Thanks so much to those of you who offered your encouragement and support through the project. It really took over my life for a couple of months, but I am so happy we finished when we did, because now I can get outside and enjoy this amazing weather!













