Farmhouse Kitchen Reveal:Part1

Is a remodeling project ever really done?

I don't think so.

July 5th of 2016 we began the cabinet side of our kitchen. NEW ceilings, lighting, floors and cabinetry. Phew! All done by seniors, even installing the heavy IKEA cabinetry. 

Honest, I'm not being paid or supported in any way from IKEA. We chose this for the economy of doing it ourselves and the construction itself. If a tornado comes through our house, trust me, the kitchen will be still standing.

So all of October we have been twiddling with our Farmhouse Kitchen with finishing touches. It seemed like everyday, the island was piled high with tools for the latest project, usually with one or two step-stools set up. Back in the right hand corner you can still see the edge of the compressor/nailer, blocking the back door.

This morning I decided, it was time to take pictures NOW as it is. 

We have been cooking, eating, rearranging and moving things around for a month.

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Here was the plan I showed last Spring. This was to be my NEW dream kitchen with all the DRUTHERS! But besides being pretty, the kitchen has to function.

Did we stick with the plan, YES. We did flip the sink with the drainboard to the the left. The space above the stove fan was added and custom built from an extra cabinet and faced with a door. Same above the sink. Hubby was very creative and used matching pieces to fill in our problem spaces.

First a few OLD before pictures.

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I had never really showed a total kitchen picture of before. I always showed my kitchen in vignettes. 

Why, because it was dated(1974), dark, and depressing. 

My antiques were far more interesting than the room itself. 

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The room was cut in half by a soffit which also topped above all the cabinetry. 

Removing the soffits was shown HERE.

They are great for hanging plates, but were responsible for lots of wasted space storage space

Don't you love how the light bulbs stuck out of the old recessed lighting? 

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When I look at these pictures now---I think I cluttered it all

 in an attempt to disguise how horrible it was underneath.

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 I never showed the floor---LOL, this is the tile that was on the floor.

 I used a new piece or two in the Barbie house.

Installing the subfloor and vinyl plank flooring was covered in this post, HERE.

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No matter how many light fixtures were turned on, 

or how much I lightened pictures -the OLD kitchen was dark.

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The corner cabinetry was a dead space, no cabinet access to the corner. 

Don't you love the Mediterranean hardware? The worst part was all the lower cabinets had added wire baskets, but shelves were stand-on-your-head/twist-and-reach. 

We are not really able to be pretzels in our late 60's anymore.

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Looking toward the eating area. All my strainers hung from the ceiling, no place else to keep them.

The island always seemed to have an appliance on it, because of the hassle of putting them away.

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Black fronted stove didn't help. Every inch of counter was covered. I had no room for dishes; note the platters and plates on top of the microwave.

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My 18" OLD pantry which I never showed, totally crammed with appliances and food. 

Some of the containers are tipped in order to get the maximum number into the pantry.

Removing the wall to the left and the pantry was shown HERE.

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Here is the NEW 30" pantry now. Love the waffle iron, 3 electric frypans, and George Forman right where I can see them and USE them on the shelf.

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The pantry is located to the left, we stole a bit of space from the clothes closet at the front door. 

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I love the lower drawers, more room for small appliances, staples, and my grinder/sausage maker, which I may now actually use since it isn't buried in the basement. 

Homemade chicken-sausage anyone?

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The middle drawers hold smaller food items.

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They hold canned goods, packets, etc. This is still a work in progress. I have more dividers to use when I figure out what works best. A real plus with the IKEA system is everything is flexible and inter-changeable. 

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Top shelf in the pantry, a big soup pot and my woks.

We are going to lower this shelf, I think.

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Hubby still has some cords to bury, and a bit of finishing behind the stove. 

 I love the new extended fanhood that works well with my double oven stove. We did not do new appliances as all of ours were less than 8 years old. 

He still has a panel to add to the left side of the stove. 

The microwave cabinet is wonderful and was an existing shelf in the IKEA shelving 

department and rated for the extra weight.

One drill hole for electrical access and it's a microwave shelf.

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Under the microwave, the cabinet drawers hold the glass covered dishes I use in the microwave.

Note all the 'vintage' cookware, yes, when you are married in 1968, you have some vintage.

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Below that is a lid drawer for with dividers and a frypan.

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All the drawers are pull out, no more standing on your head 

and twist/reaching to find something buried in the back. 

The top drawer holds tools for cooking, I missed taking a picture of that.

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To the right of the stove is this handy pullout shelf system for those bottles you use all the time, 

with room on the bottom for the large ones 

which originally lined the stairs to the basement (which was so attractive).

Above that is is a spice cabinet and two shelves, which is a work in progress.

 I think that will need some creative solutions, when I solve them, lol.

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The corner cabinet which was dead space before, now has a 'LOVE the carousel' filled with my pots and pans. We added rack divider on either side for the large electric griddle that replaced our old ones and the large boards and stove griddle. 

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I still have my mixer on the counter. It just doesn't quite fit anywhere

 because it doesn't come apart, but I use this quite often. 

I plan to edit the countertops, as we get used to having a place for most things. 

After two weeks with no blue jars on the counters, I had to put them out, lol.

We added a divider rack to the right of the mixer for cutting boards. Putting them away in the pantry was a pain, and overhead was dangerous when a second would come out. 

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My large spices work on the upper cabinet carousel, with tall plastic containers and pitchers working well on the top. I still have space on these shelves.

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In the cabinet next to the refrigerator, the lower two drawers hold glass oblong bakers, 

potholders and plastic food containers. Here are the top two drawers with cooking related tools.

I love the drawer within a drawer. Shallow drawers are un-crammable, 

you can't help but be organized. I bought organizing trays at IKEA for under $3.00

 and smaller ones at the Dollar store.

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This is an early picture as I started to stock the glass doored entertainment cupboard.

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The glass shelves are 36" wide and can only hold twenty-four pounds, 

so stocking them is a bit tricky. We still are working on this. 

I need color in my world, and balancing that with displaying some of our 

favorite things is still a work in progress. I expect they will get a REDO several times a year.

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Here is the finished cooking side of the NEW kitchen. We added clear silicone counter protectors found online for the edges the butcher block counters. They also cover the edge for crumbs or tools from falling between the stove and cabinets.

 The under cabinet lighting is a wonderful addition and can dim or brighten. 

They turn on and off with a small remote disk switch. 

 Hubby turns them on and off---all the time. 

We have had the island counter for four years now with butcher block and loved it. Hubby did give it a light sanding and an oiling when we did the other counters. We did mineral oil, until the oil sat up on the wood and no longer would be absorbed. We add a new oiling maybe three times a year.

So we did the counters for the rest of the kitchen.

The woods makes a nice connection with the vinyl plank flooring and the trim throughout our home.

Stay tuned for Part 2: The Island, Lighting, and the Sink wall. 

Resources: 

Cabinetry-IKEA

Cabinetry lighting-IKEA

Countertops-Menards and IKEA

Hardware-IKEA

Flooring: Menards

Bead board Ceiling: Menards

Exhaust fan: Menards online

Flooring: Menards

Dimensional Subway tile: Home Depot

Elbow Grease: Three Seniors and Family

Thanks always for visiting. 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question.

All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions or posts. Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. Thank you for your cooperation, Sandi Magle

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Sandi