HGTV In Real Life: Kitchen Facelift

We thought the kitchen was going to be one of the first projects we would tackle and renovate as homeowners, and we got halfway done....but we ended up waiting over a year. It started out as an aesthetic problem, and we were able to compromise on the aesthetics of the kitchen to put it off and save money. However, when the dishwasher wasn't secured any longer to the underside of our crumbling wood-bits-smashed-together-and-covered-in-plastic counters, it was no longer an issue of aesthetics. Every time we wanted to put dishes in the dishwasher, it would tip forward and make my heart skip a beat.

One of my favorite parts of renovating has been that I can truly make it my own. I'm not overly particular about aesthetics to begin with, but when it comes to the biggest purchase and investment (probably) of my life, coupled with the fact that we bought an older house knowing it needed some renovating, I'm going to be picky. And having seen the results of our kitchen facelift, I am confident that no house we saw with renovated kitchens had one that came close to being my dream kitchen.

Before:



After round 1 of facelift:





During phase 2 of the facelift:





And finally, I present, my dream kitchen:





So...I wish I could say nothing was ever on our counters, but that would be a lie. So this is what our counters actually look like:

We're pretty clean...at least in the kitchen :)

I was in awe for a while after we finished our kitchen. Having lived with the outdated materials for so long, I got used to it. And then, I watched the contractors install pretty much every detail, so it wasn't a big reveal for me. To be honest at first, I wasn't sure if I liked it. Jonathan and I took FOREVER to pick our backsplash (like....almost a year if not more. Yes, we had been looking at backsplash for a LONG time) because I couldn't decide whether it was worth it to splurge on a fancy shmancy design or just to keep it simple and low-budget. In the end, we went simple and low-budget, and I'm more than pleased with how it turned out. I learned that visualizing an end product with just one representative piece is really difficult. Super props to interior designers who can figure this all out in their head instantly.

If you're curious on the materials we used, I've made a list below of every item we bought for the kitchen. I didn't include any of the appliances. All the current prices listed on the links are higher than what we paid for them.

Kitchen Sink - Kraus

Kitchen Faucet - Kohler

Backsplash Tile

Quartz Countertops

Cabinet Hardware

Range Hood Vent

Cabinet Paint: SW Pro Classic Satin Pure White 7005

Wall Paint: SW Marshmallow 7001

Jonathan and I don't splurge on fancy meals or new clothes on ourselves very often if ever, but we do spend the time and money to have a nice house, not only for ourselves, but to share it with others. One thing I've enjoyed most about having our home is being able to open it up to others and have them come over for dinner, host friends who are in town for the weekend, and to share our lives with others. We hope you can enjoy our house as much as we do :)