Kitchen Redo

A few years ago we were seriously considering building a new home.  Plans changed and we bought an existing home and made it our own...which included redoing the kitchen.  I thought I'd share a few tips on how we did it, and ways you can spruce up your kitchen without spending much at all! The before picture isn't exactly "before"....sadly I forgot to take a picture before the floor, appliances and countertops had all been changed.  However, BEFORE...

...and AFTER

Here are the big things we changed which made all the difference:

Cabinets...

  
A huge money saver in redoing a kitchen is to REFACE rather than replace your cabinets.  It saved us about $5,000.  We went with Rustic Cherry cabinet doors and the darker color really gives a warm feel to our whole kitchen.  Omar with Absolute in Wood (801-224-0008) did them and we were pleased with his work.  From the bid to finished product was about two weeks.  Also, take a look at the before and after picture to see the unique touch he put above the sink...it really helps to make our kitchen feel complete!

Countertops...

Although granite is a bit of an investment, I LOVE it.  We used Giallo Santo which works really well with many color schemes.  We worked with High Country Granite in Lehi...they were good to work with and fairly comparable in price to other companies. 

Appliances...

If you have a young family and are looking to replace appliances with the steel look, get clean steel instead of stainless steel!  So many less fingerprints to wipe up everyday!  Also a big recommendation to go GAS!  Lisa recommended we do this and it's so nice to have instant heat over the stove!  It only cost us about $100 to run a gas line and we're so glad we did!

Cheap but effective updates... 

If you look close in the before picture, there was river rock below our bar.  It wasn't too bad, but we wanted the beadboard look instead.  We bought the beadboard and posts at Best Woods in Orem...my personal favorite place to buy beadboard.  Total cost including paint for this project was about $250.  However, it still looks great to just do the beadboard and that would have been under $100.  A beadboard tutorial will be coming shortly...it's SO easy!

Adding or changing hardware to your cabinets really makes a difference!  We bought ours at Lowes for under $100 for all the doors.  If you're looking for something small to do, this is the fix!

With as many hours as we spend in the kitchen, make yours a comfortable, beautiful place to be!