NewlyWoodwards

an unconventional home

A budget kitchen remodel in a foreclosure

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Ahhhh…. the kitchen. The place to scramble eggs, gather with friends and enjoy homemade dinners.

If you looked at the kitchen of our home when we took possession of our home, none of this would seem possible. Instead, it was dirty (really dirty), greasy (really greasy),  and incredibly stinky (I’m not exaggerating).
So, the kitchen is room numero quatro in our little home-a-palooza home tour. Wanna see the before?

kitchen foreclosure before


We really seriously considered keeping that lovely orange-yellow color (and matching outlets). It’s so soothing.

Just kidding… it was disgusting. I’m sorry, but it was.

You cannot really tell from these photos, but the ceramic tiles were built up about 2 inches from the dining room (stubbed toe alert). There were two layers of plywood, two layers of linoleum and ceramic tile. Strange.
Guess what was under those layers of floor??????? HARDWOOD! (Insert happy dance.)
kitchen foreclosure before 1
Do you see the stove hood?
Apparently, someone set the kitchen on fire. The hood and upper cabinet were scorched and the blinds were totally melted.
kitchen foreclosure before 3
And, the path to the dungeon. *shudder*
Remember how I said a dog was left in the house? He was trapped in the kitchen and basement. It was pretty obvious that this was a true story. So sad.
This is just a funny photo of how my husband and father-in-law set up the kitchen to have a working sink until it was re-done. Makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.
They were so proud. Think this would pass building code? And, I should note that this shows the wood floors in their original form…. doesn’t even look like wood, does it?
Here’s a shot of the walls. The texture was uneven, so I did a simple sponge painting at first.

I KNOW! I KNOW! But you guys, sponge painting was TOTALLY COOL. I promise.

And then I finally painted the walls a gorgeous blue/green – Silver Sage. And all was well in the world.

kitchen silver sage

Here’s a better shot of the floors after refinishing, and the doorway into the Dining Room, with no chance of a stubbed toe now.

silver sage refinished floors

Below, Ryan and his dad are working on installing the cabinets. They are nice shaker-style maple cabinets.

It was a fairly small footprint, so we kept the basic layout the same. But what a transformation.
Ryan also build a simple pantry behind the kitchen door to the basement. How did I live without this?

And here’s the island we added later. Gives us additional storage space and an area for two stools, which is handy. Ryan installed me some basic shelves about the windows for display.

kitchen island

So, for an 8×13 kitchen, I think we have a great deal of space (although I could always use more).

Finally, here is our little “mudroom” area. Ryan made the bench for shoes and it works pretty well.

door storage

Comments

  2. Those wood floors are gorgeous! And I love that little bench. In regards to the dotcom site:
    I really wanted something like Blue Eyed Bride and Mojito Maven. But they are doing theirs through word press and all of their domain sites are a monthly fee. I didn’t want to pay monthly and I didn’t want it to be expensive. Plus, I’m not familiar with wordpress and I didn’t want to take the time to figure everything out.

    So, I went to my blog settings and then publishing. Then you switch to a domain name. You type in what you want to see if it is available. It is $10 a year. It’s so much better than the name I originally had. I’m happy with it!

  3. I love hardwood. When we bought our house redoing the kitchen was the first priority.

  4. Ohhh, that poor dog! Who does that?!

    I can totally see myself whipping up a meal in this new & improved kitchen. Oh who am I kidding….I can totally see myself whipping out the wine corkscrew in this new & improved kitchen.

    I wish we had a sweet mudroom area like that. How ’bout I just bring my mud over to yours?

  8. I love how you keep mentioning smell. WHen we bought our house the pics I took were bad enough…The smell was just awful. Any neighbors that come into our home so WOW it smells so nice so different lol!!

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