I promised an update a while ago and I apologize for taking so long to get it done.  We’ve only been working on the kitchen on weekends so it’s taking longer than it normally would.  We have all of the cabinet in the kitchen, just not all the drawers and doors.

We had the granite counters installed back in March.  The look of the kitchen changed a lot when those went in.  It’s starting to look more like a finished kitchen.

Here is the decorative tile that will go behind my gas cook top.

We also got the window frames finished for the two windows in the kitchen.  The color on the window frames is the same color that will go onto the cabinets when I stain them.

So, we are back into the kitchen again and I’m excited to say I have some cabinets.  I was seriously beginning to wonder if I was going to be forever camping in my own home.

Here is a finished picture of the floor.  The picture doesn’t do it justice.

The floor with the grout in.

Dwayne wanted the same green from the outside of the house to be in the kitchen as well.  So I painted the back wall of the kitchen while he and his friend John were working on making cabinets.

Back wall of kitchen. I thought it would make the kitchen look darker than it really does. Looks very good in here.

I came home from work and they had the refrigerator cabinet all done and one cabinet mounted on the wall.

My first cabinets. 🙂

Came home another day and I had another upper cabinet and the cook top was in it’s own cabinet.  I”m so excited to start getting cabinets that it’s giving me goose bumps.  LOLOLOL

It’s starting to come together. Took us long enough.

Now they are working on the cabinet for the oven and microwave.  It will go at the end of these cabinets and that will be it for this side of the kitchen.  Of course there are still shelves and drawers to put in but hey, I’ve got the cabinets now.  That’s a major move in the right direction if you ask me.

So the kitchen was also placed on hold for the Holiday season.  We are still trying to get motivated to get back into it.

We did finished putting drywall on all the walls and ceiling (that wasn’t fun).  We still have a plywood floor.  Dwayne hooked up my oven, microwave, the hood for the cooktop and YES my cooktop.  I have a fully functioning kitchen minus the cabinets and counters.  LOL.

At this point I don’t care because I love that cooktop.  He hooked it up and that night I proceeded to light up three burners and cook dinner.  But sadly now we are going to have to unhook everything so that we can start in on the drywall.  The sooner it gets done the sooner I can have my stuff hooked back up.

That’s all for now.  I’ll post pictures of the appliances later.  He made moveable stands for my appliances so they are the height they are going to be when in the cabinets and so he could unhook everything and just roll it out of the way.  Very clever I thought

There hasn’t been much to update on the kitchen.  Both Dwayne and I have been fighting off colds so work has been moving at a snails pace.

We did however make some progress over the weekend.  We got drywall put up on the ceiling and on two walls.

We are hoping to get the rest put up this week.

Thought I would just give an over view of what we have actually done on the kitchen in the last year. Yup, you read that right. The last year. We are slow to really get moving. =)

Here is a picture of what the kitchen looked like when we first started.

Original kitchen

First we decided that it was time to change out the wallpaper. So I started peeling paper. I started at the entrance of the kitchen then moved to the back wall, then on to the wall with the big window. I peeled a lot of wallpaper and I have to tell you it was not easy. This was vinyl coated wallpaper and spraying it with water does no good. The water runs right off. So, I had to peel the first layer off then spray with warm water to remove the rest

We started giving the kitchen remodel some serious thought.  We knew we wanted to buy new appliances and the ones that I picked out we, by we I mean Dwayne =),  would need to make the cabinets bigger.  So he decided that to start the door at the end of the kitchen needed to go.  So out it came.

Before with the door

After door is removed

Then he gets the bright idea that we’ll just replace the drywall (every where I have already peeled the wallpaper).  I’m giving him a bad time about this till because he waited until I was completely finished peeling paper from those walls before he decided to remove the drywall, then had the nerve to tell me “It’s good practice”   And while we are at it we will add insulation to the outside wall where the window is.  He also decided that the door leading out to the garage needed to be moved down the wall close to where the other door had been removed.  So I started ripping out drywall.  It’s really good for getting out your frustrations because you are demolishing something.  =)

Looking into the kitchen from the newly moved garage door

Once we had our appliances we decided we would put the new frig in and use it.  We opted for a counter depth frig and neither one of us thought much about it.  It’s shallower but also taller.  Needless to say the frig didn’t fit the area we wanted to put it even though we measured prior to our purchase.   Like all good projects we had to improvise.  We took out the cabinet that was above the old frig and tried again.  It fit.  Yeah!!!!!!   But now we couldn’t open one door because it hit the wall.   LOL.  So we decided that the opening to the kitchen should just be made bigger.  With that in mind Dwayne came armed from the garage with the all purpose sawsall.  You have got to love this tool.  Cuts through a car just as easily as it cuts through drywall.  So bigger the opening got.   And what do you know, the frig finally fits.   =)

Before - small entrance, old frig w/cabinet above

After - larger entrance and new frig w/o cabinet above. Isn't that one purdy fridge?

We just had to see how the souffets were made so we took the drywall off of them and then the real fun began.  We started dismantling the kitchen cabinet by cabinet.   Then came the floor.

Which brings us up to date on the kitchen.  We are still looking at a gutted kitchen with a new plywood floor.  I’m told this weekend is drywall for the walls and ceiling.