Ripped-out kitchen, three months later.

Last time I wrote, I left you with a picture of a completely ripped-out kitchen (thanks to the awesome people at Habitat for Humanity ReStore, who will rip it out for free if you donate it to them).  That was in mid-September.  As we stared at the blank space, the nature of our commitment became apparent to us.  We either had to find a way to do it on a budget (like our food budget), or we would no longer have a kitchen.

So here’s the progress:

The picture above is the original corner that was ripped out in a previous post.  Our kitchen is a big square, so it’s impossible to show it all at once.  Where the double ovens are is where the fridge used to be, and the stovetop is basically where the range used to be.

The fridge got relocated to the other wall.  I took this picture (below) in the evening when we were painting and trying out rugs, so pardon the low-quality picture and all the junk in it.

Here is the little seating area we made in the window, to the left of the sink and open shelves.

Currently, we’re working on the vent hood, which will have a frame built around it of reclaimed wood.  Then, the backsplash will go in and will look something like this:

We haven’t decided on the pattern that the tiles will be run yet, but there are several options.  We are also planning to frame in a little nook above the stovetop for oils, and install a pot filler.  That’s why the backsplash isn’t in yet.

In future posts, I’ll explain how we did this on a small budget, and why we chose what we did.  Mostly it had to do with what we had available to us for as cheap as possible.  If we had found different materials, it would’ve looked completely different, which would’ve also been fun.  (Using used materials is kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure story).

And just FYI, we did have to paint the cabinets to match.  We happened to find the same door style (or very similar) at ReStore in different colors and finishes, so painting was necessary.  Here’s how it looked at first:

Note that the plate rack above the oven cabinet isn’t even the right size (see picture below)!  Dave cut it down to fit later.  Actually, the oven cabinet originally had an attached cabinet that wasn’t a matching style at all, so we cut it off.  Then we added the plate rack (from ReStore, and three inches too long), and another cabinet on top.

This was the new fridge wall before, with mismatched cabinet colors.

And before that, it was just this:

 

Want to know how we did it for cheap for real?  We hired these guys to do all the work.