Palms Kitchen Reno!

It's happening!!!  Our kitchen renovation is officially underway and we couldn’t be more thrilled!  All cabinets and flooring have been removed.  The wall between the kitchen and living room has been torn down along with the soffits, so we have a big open space now!  We have been working non-stop on this project.  I’ve been wanting to remodel this space since the moment we bought the house, so to finally be manifesting that dream is beyond exciting for me! 

Here are my main issues with the old layout:

• The wall between the kitchen and living room really closed in the space.

• The soffits stuck out at least a foot past the upper cabinetry which also closed in the space.  This is probably my main issue with the old kitchen.  I hated them with a passion.  (Taking a hammer to them made me a VERY happy lady!)

• The laminate flooring had seen better days and did not resemble real wood at all.  (Laminate has come a long way since these floors were installed.)  Oh and whoever installed it wasn’t the best at cutting around door jambs.

• The cabinets were not the best functioning.  While I did like the door fronts, the interiors of the cabinets were not the most convenient.

• The multiple blind corner cabinets were basically unusable.

• It was difficult to reach dishes in the back of the lower cabinets.

• All the wasted space made it hard to organize our dishes and storage containers (just think stacks upon stacks upon stacks of items).

Here's an example of our utensil drawer:

hot mess.

• The lower white cabinets showed stains easily and were difficult to clean.

• There was no great location for our microwave so we resorted to using a cart across the doorway that was an obstacle to move around.

• The kitchen table also seemed to be an obstacle to move around.

• The pantry had a lot of blind corners where food items were unseen and forgotten.

• THE SINK.  Ugh!  Very shallow sink base + leaky low profile faucet = good luck fitting anything medium/big in the sink.

• Our 70s wet bar needed an update. 

• First off, the sink plumbing was never properly hooked up, so if you wanted to use the faucet, you’d end up with a puddle of water in the basement! 

• It was also very dark and in need of better lighting. 

• No upper shelving or cabinets.  We need more storage for our glassware!

Here’s a look at our old layout on our move-in day:

 We painted the walls a mint color and added open shelving and here is how it looked for a while:

Microwave cart made it hard to access the pantry.

Over the years, I changed out the hardware and added a few touches here and there:

Bright Shot Photography

Bright Shot Photography

Bright Shot Photography // Do you see the crazy soffits??! So bad.

The kitchen looks NOTHING like that today!

Now let's check out the wet bar on move-in day:

We painted the cabinets white and changed out the hardware:

Here is a more recent photo of it:

It will be so nice to have upper cabinetry for more storage!

Check back next week to read about the new plan, progress photos and some hiccups we've had along the way.  I can’t wait to show you what we’ve been up to!

Emily