Thursday, January 19, 2012

Kitchen Renovation Finish!

As promised here is the "before and after" post upon completion of our kitchen/dining transformation, as of yesterday it is complete. Wow, how long has it been? I had to look back at last year's posts to confirm that the first day of demolition was November 12th. so two months for a complete "gut" of this area is not bad. DH accomplished a marathon job in all the hidden work, demolition, trenching, plumbing, lighting, electrical, tiling etc, replacing a window with French doors, and actually everything but the cabinets and the granite! I helped with repainting.
The vision was mine and the search for and acquisition of all the "accoutrements" [at the best price of course] was also mine. We had a very talented carpenter, David Kobe from "Wood You Want" in Tempe A.Z. whose ideas enhanced the cabinetry design and ergonomics, and that of the island, and Jesus Ortiz from "City Of Stone" also in Tempe, whose stonework created the beautiful island top and counter tops. Each of these talented craftsmen deserve high praise for the quality and ethical professionalism of their work.
David also "built in" the wine fridge and our small freezer so they are incorporated into the cabinets and the island. The cabinets are a soft white with caramel glaze, the island color is a cherry blend stain. The appliances are fairly new so we chose not to replace them at this time, saving thousands of dollars.
No more messy, unfriendly shelves in the lower cabs, but lots of drawers for pots, small appliances etc. The drawers are "soft close", what a difference!
Together we took a small, inconvenient and dated area and transformed it into a fabulous, roomy, convenient space with more useable cabinets and counters, two ways in and out of the kitchen area, an extra "prep sink" and comfortable seating for ten people. And on a fairly tight budget too, monitored by yours truly!
What follows are before and after comparisons, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Before........

after.

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after.

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after.

Before...........


after.

Here is a view of the corner where by moving the stove 12" to the right, David was able to give us a fabulous corner with a lazy susan underneath, appliance garage on the counter and a huge corner cabinet above, which before was all empty useless corner space! A gain of about 15 cu.ft. in cabinet space here.

This "garage" hides the toaster, stand mixer, coffee grinder and some utensils that I use daily.


I chose dentil molding, more work for David, but he is so obliging, and it is the icing on the cake, sets off the lovely, simple cabinetry perfectly.
The rain glass I love too, and it will be even nicer when we have lighting installed. I have ordered many feet of LED lighting for under cabinets and eventually under the edge of the island granite. More work for my very patient [long-suffering he would probably say] DH.


An unexpected surprise from Jesus, a cutting board from a piece of the counter granite. He carefully planned the cuts for each area to maximize use of the color and "movement" on the granite slabs. About 95% of two entire slabs of granite was used for this renovation. The island granite is "Misty Mountain" and the counters are "White Spring" both from Brazil.

It looks, feels and lives much larger and I am a very happy camper you can be sure, you may hear my yips of glee from where ever you are! I do like to cook and have family and friends around and it's so much more fun now.
Thank you, thank you, David Kobe, Jesus Ortiz and my hard working husband.

13 comments:

Jody said...

Looks wonderful! and cooking and entertaining are so much more fun in a happy place!!

Gari in AL said...

Beautiful. It might even make me like to cook. ;-)

alex said...

Beautiful kitchen worktops. It is nice.

Yvonne - NZ said...

WOW! - Yours is the first blog I have ever commented on and want to say your kitchen looks fabulous - we are intending to start renovations to our kitchen in about six months
so hope things turn out so well for us. Also
have a kitchen to move to another area in our
house at the Beach

Miri said...

Gorgeous renovation! I love the long-table island: brilliant idea!!

KeyQuilter said...

Could I move in??????

Roslyn said...

Thank you, I know we will really enjoy it!

Roslyn said...

It was in my head for a long time, Yvonne,and has finally come to fruition. Use the internet to get the best buy on your fixtures, you can save 50% or more!

Lynette said...

Nice!! I really really love the circular seating on the island end!

Jo B said...

Really nice....love it! We remodeled our kitchen in 2007 and used Corain on the counters and also got the "extra" cutting board. But the installers told us not to use it for that, but to keep it in case something happened to the counter top and then that piece could be used to repair it.....well the unimaginable happened this Christmas! I was baking and POP! the counter top cracked (really not sure why), but was covered under the warranty and the repair guy they sent out was very happy about the extra piece, because that counter and color was no longer made. But he did an excellent job in repairing the crack....can't even see it, so you might want to put it away for that "emergency"....just a thought...wanted to share our experience.

Roslyn said...

Wow that's a shock for sure! We probably won't use it for much chopping, just for cutting fruit or something it's very hard on your knives if you use it a lot. But it looks really pretty!

Cathy Stoddard said...

Beautimous!!!!
Absolutely BEAUTIMOUS Ros!
Love the granite and the "island" - what a great idea!
Thanks for sharing,
Cathy

Khris said...

AWESOME work Roslyn...well done to everybody who had a hand in it....you must be feeling like a Queen now...hugs Khris