Over the past few weeks, I have been in the process of
renovating my kitchen. My house is a
1959 relic, and everything about the house is archaic and original. The
bathrooms have the cotton candy 4” x 4” pink tiles and pink bathtub, the floors
are made of poured terrazzo, there is an indoor/outdoor Florida room with
jalousie windows, and the house just has the overall feel of an Old Florida
home. Since I officially became the homeowner, I have done some minor cosmetic
work, but just haven’t had the opportunity to really customize any one facet of
the house. My first chance to make a
drastic change to the house came a few weeks ago. At one of my projects, we
were gutting the original kitchen, and doing a complete kitchen overhaul. The
existing cabinets at the house though were high-end KraftMaid cabinets that are
just not in vogue with the latest trends, yet still are very nicely crafted
hickory wood / plywood cabinets. The homeowners were contemplating just getting
rid of the cabinets, but my dad asked if they would be willing to allow me to
be the beneficiary of the cabinets, and they obliged. My dad and I took
measurements of my existing kitchen, and drew up a master plan and layout for
the “new” cabinets. We had our restaurant napkin plan, and were ready to begin
the next step.
So began the long and winding journey of removing the
cabinets from their original locale, and relocating them to my house. This task
sounded like a piece of cake, but until we began to physically dismantle the
cabinets and remove the screws, we quickly learned that we were in for a
difficult assignment. We managed to get all of the cabinets down without too
much trouble, and then the next leg of the journey began – loading them in the
Uhaul and transporting them to my residence. Thankfully, one of my good
friends, Joe, offered up his services in helping with the move, and we managed
to get everything over to my house without having too many issues.
After having removed the existing cabinets in my kitchen, my
dad and I began to install the new cabinets, and to our great surprise, the
layout was coming together flawlessly. One by one we placed the cabinets in
their ultimate locations, and before we knew it, the job was done (in actuality
the job dragged on way longer than either of us had hoped for it to).
After all of the cabinets were installed, I had the granite
company template all of the countertops, and within 6 days they had the granite
tops installed. I chose a 3CM Nettuno Bordeaux slab, which was 130” x 79” - just large enough so that all of the tops
were able to be cut out of one large slab. After the tops were in, the next
step was to pick out a backsplash that would complement the granite, terrazzo
floors, and hickory cabinets well. I decided to check out Lowes, to see if they
might had any nice tile. I happened to find a green 3” x 6” glass subway tile,
the manufacturer is Shoreline. I also picked out a glass border tile to add a
little bit of a modern feel to the backsplash.
Once the tops were done, the backsplash installed, I took a
trip to Brandsmart in order to pick out the appliances. I was able to find
reasonably priced General Electric appliances for the slide-in range,
over-the-range microwave, and 18” dishwasher. With a hop and a skip, the
kitchen was completed, and below are the pictures of the final product. I was
very pleased with how everything turned out, and was grateful to have the
chance to re-use the cabinets and give them a new home!
Demo of the existing kitchen - what a mess! My Dad helped me out through the process
Finished product - what a difference!
here is my beautiful girlfriend putting the new kitchen to use making some delicious pad thai!