Little Moments and Fun Adventures: Kitchen Remodel in Photos

If you've talked to me in the last year, you've probably heard that we were working on a kitchen remodel. At first, it was really exciting. Our kitchen needed it. I detailed all the reasons why here. Once the remodel started, it was exciting. There was real progress. No more nasty white sink!

But as the days and weeks (okay, and months) that our kitchen was under construction dragged on, it became the bane of my existence. I made spinach artichoke dip for our New Year's Eve party in the dining room. And then washed the Slap Chop in the bathtub. There was plaster dust every where. Our basement and garage rapidly filled with old cabinet parts, countertops, and trim pieces. These are the parts they don't show you on HGTV.

I realized the reality of doing a DIY remodel one morning when I hit my lowest point: sitting on my living room floor, eating Coco Pebbles out of a red solo cup with a plastic fork.

We did this entire kitchen remodel by ourselves, with no professional help. And by we, I mean my dad. And Brett and I occasionally stood around and held a flashlight for him. Just kidding, Brett did a lot of the work. I provided a significant amount of moral support by napping on the couch.

So how did this all come to be? First, let's remember what our kitchen used to look like.

Pretty sad, huh?

On to the remodel. It started with cabinets.We bought unfinished cabinets.

So we had to sand, stain, and varnish them. This took forever. Like four months. Our basement was pretty overrun with cabinets.

Don't worry about that huge, unorganized mess of storage in the back. Our basement flooded a few weeks ago so we got rid of a lot of it.The rest is in the hallway. So, huge step in the wrong direction.

I did a lot of the staining, I promise. There are no photos of that because I'm the photographer.

Day one of renovation. We emptied the cabinets into our spare, spare bedroom. That room was scary for a few months.

We did the majority (probably 75%) of the work the weeks of Christmas and New Year's. I had 10 days off work, my dad came over every morning at 7 a.m. (nice vacation, right?), and Brett helped when he got home from work. I think he took a few days off too--I don't remember. This was one of those instances where people block trauma from their memories.

There's going to be an unnecessary amount of photos. Feel free to skim.

Doors off

Cabinets coming down

Upper cabinets gone

Other view

Brett decided to show up one day, and we removed the old tile backsplash. I did A LOT of this (again, I'm the photographer, no photos). We also got to work removing the sink and countertop.

No more backsplash, sink, or counter

Lower cabinets gone

Pretty empty

New cabinets going up

What happens when you have two perfectionists install cabinets? It takes FOREVER. And results in me napping on the couch.

Lots of hard work.

Two cabinets! I probably would have been happy if they stopped here. This is more cabinets than we had in our first apartment!

Top cabinets mostly done. Mom helped me supervise. She also brought us a lot of food. Since, you know, we had no way to cook anything.

Base cabinets going in

Sink base

My real contribution: paint. Notice the bulkhead is no longer painted in the lovely shade of "Baby Poo"

Another cabinet and new microwave (I think Brett's face in the microwave is very Breaking Bad Finale-esque, no?)

Getting some doors--and we also put the old countertop and sink back in (while we waited for the new countertop to arrive. But our new faucet is in and was a million times better than the old!)