One of the ways we saved money was to not demo the existing plaster walls. We still needed to cover them up since there was a good bit of damage to them, but we didn't have to pay for demoing them out. The drywall guy used quarter inch drywall over the plaster walls after he patched up some areas. It ended up looking nice and even with clean lines. We had all new electrical outlets added and replaced throughout the kitchen and butler areas. The plumber add new piping for the washer and sink areas. We had a gas line installed so that one day we can get that dream gas range we've always wanted...but that'll be a few years from now.
I knew from the beginning that I wanted hardwood floors
in my kitchen. We did consider tile at one point just because we were scared the hardwoods would looks so different from the original hardwoods already in the house. In the end I couldn't get having hardwoods in the kitchen out of my head so we stressed to our contractor to please get them as close as he could to matching the existing hardwoods. I'm pretty sure he was worried he wouldn't live up to my expectations, but he surpassed them for sure. Obviously they look newer, but give it time, my kids will have them scratched and dented in no time haha.
Onto the kitchen cabinets. My brother-in-law built these gorgeous cabinets in his home workshop back in Pennsylvania. He is a one man show so it took a little longer to get the cabinets but what he built was worth the wait! They are gorgeous! I never dreamt that I would be able to afford custom cabinets and he made it a reality. From start to finish for him it took three or four months
to build them and he was down in South Carolina for one week to install them. My
whole family of in-laws came down to help that week and Tyler took his vacation It was crazy here that week but it got done. After getting them installed it was time to paint them. We ended up doing the two-tone cabinet colors. For the
upper cabinets I went with Alabaster by Sherwin-Williams in a semi gloss
finish. For the lower cabinets I really loved this color Cheating Heart by
Benjamin Moore so I got Sherwin-Williams to color match and it come out so
gorgeous! The paint took several days to do because we had to wait for it to fully dry before doing the second and third coats. On average, it took a full day for the paint to dry enough to do the next coat. The extreme humidity in the South is the reason for the long dry time. For the hardware I ended up going with something from Pottery Barn. I love the
antique brass finish. I think it is very
fitting for the age of our home.
My Brother in Law also put up the beautiful crown molding which really was a game changer in there. He was able to get it from his work at a super discounted price. We actually have crown molding left over that we plan on using in
our dining room when we start that project...hopefully here in the next 2 to 3
weeks so stay tuned.
Once the cabinets were installed we had our countertop
people come out and measure. After that we had to wait two weeks to get the countertops installed. We went with Calacatta Vintage Quartz countertops. The wait time for installation was about normal but it felt like forever because we were at a stand still until the countertops were in. That meant no tiling and no plumbing gettinh installed. Tyler had
already used his vacation up to install the cabinets with his brother so he could only work on tiling the kitchen on his
days off. Imagine working somewhere between 50-60 hour work weeks and
then on your two days off still working in the kitchen trying to get it done so
your wife doesn’t go crazy lol. It officially took about two weeks but technically only four days that were all spread out to install floor to ceiling white 3 x 6 subway tile. After hanging the tile it was time for grouting. We went with a premade grout and I highly recommend it. It saves so much time, and you get a consistent color for the whole project!
All the
appliances are new except for the stove and microwave. We went
with a counter depth refrigerator because we have such a small kitchen we
didn’t need some bulky refrigerator taking up the entire wall. I love the washer and dryer. Our dishwasher is so quiet now that I sometimes put my hand on it to make sure I actually started it.
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The DIY for this light is in my highlights on Instagram |
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