Kitchen & Dining Room Reveal
If there’s one room in the house I was most excited about renovating, it was our kitchen. I think most people might say that during a renovation considering the kitchen is the room that people live in the most. And especially if you love to cook, like myself, you’re going to want a kitchen that’s functional, but also has flow and some ole feng shui to it.
Our 1938 Tudor pre-renovation was approximately 1500 square feet, and I say “approximately” because there was some debate when we bought the house about the number of “live-able” square feet according to our county’s codes. And I’m not exactly sure the final number that our real estate agent and inspector decided on. Codes…am I right? (If you’re not laughing now, you will once you pull permits to renovation your house.) But my point is that we definitely fought and searched for storage and organization solutions in EVERY room with the square footage of our single-family house. Not to mention our laundry room was on the exterior of our house and had it’s own “mobile home” look to it. So every time we wanted to do laundry, rain or shine, we had to lug our dirty/clean laundry to and from our back door. Needless to say, we needed some serious feng shui improvements!
So at last, here are the before and after pictures of our kitchen and dinning room:
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
AFTER
DINING ROOM BEFORE
DINING ROOM BEFORE
DINING ROOM BEFORE
DINING ROOM AFTER
What We Accomplished:
To start with the most obvious one, knocked out the exterior wall and added a 104 square foot addition, which made our kitchen larger, giving us more space for our pantry and a stackable washer and dryer.
We updated ALL of the plumbing to code (which is PEX) throughout the house, which used to be the original, 80-year-old galvanized pipes. This also improved our water pressure and turned the water coming out of our faucets from orange to clear. (The orange comes from rusty pipes.)We also installed a new water heater to our fancy new pipes, making our plumbing very solid.
We updated all the electric in the part of our house that was renovated to code, as well as any exposed wires in the basement or attic. We originally had knob and tube electric and some walls even had hot exposed wires in them—just a house fire waiting to happen that would not have been covered by our insurance.
This also brings me to our electric panel that got QUITE the update. We got a whole new panel, and then after we passed our final, we installed a Murphy door in the “closet” space. This also used to be our pantry that we shared with our electric panel, and now it gives us more closed-door storage space as well as a place to highlight all my books.
Something I forgot to mention about our living room reveal that also applies to the ENTIRE house, and not just the renovated part of it, was that we got a whole new HVAC system…again. The “again” part is kind of a longer story I’ll save for another blog post, and something I’ll let my GC, Josh, explain better since he is a super nerd about HVAC systems. But our new system is the supreme pizza of HVAC systems—all the toppings included—making it extremely legitimate. Even the HVAC inspector was drooling over it. And that is the best way I know how to explain that since I am not an HVAC nerd, but I do love me some pizza.
We installed all new light fixtures: a sconce above the sink, two pendents above the island, another pendent above the dinning room table, and a track light in the pantry/laundry room with a motion sensor switch.
We installed all new recess lighting with a smart switch installed for our entertaining area.
Again, we updated the insulation in the ceiling so it exceeded codes.
We added a new door and hardware to the door that goes into our loft.
In the dinning room, we built a breakfast nook, complete with a built-in bench that has storage in the seat.
We installed all new wooden cabinets, hardware, quartz countertops, and oak floating shelves on either side of our stove.
We have a new microwave that sits in our lower cabinets, a new hood range above our stove, as well as a new stackable washer and dryer.
And speaking of the washer and dryer, we installed a very fun, arched pocket door, wrapped in wallpaper (that has doors on it—my kind of humor) that hides our laundry room and pantry. This was super fun for me to design and not so fun for our GC and drywall guys to figure out. But they absolutely killed it, like I knew they would, and now we have this very unique door that adds some serious character to the house.
The kitchen got most of the new hardwoods that we put down, but our dining room floors were re-sanded, and a poly coat put over the top to highlight the natural white oak tones.
And lastly, everything got a fresh coat of paint as new dry wall, doors, crown molding, and trim were installed just about everywhere.
PANTRY & LAUNDRY ROOM AFTER
AFTER
AFTER
ELECTRIC PANEL/PANTRY BEFORE
ELECTRIC PANEL/MURPHY DOOR AFTER
What’s Left:
The biggest thing left on my to-do list is the backsplash that will go from counter to crown. And this will also go, not only on the wall our floating shelves sit on, but also the wall that our fridge and sink sit on.
I still have a bit of painting left to do. Part of the crown molding needs to be painted as well as the trim around the new murphy door.
Eventually, we’ll replace the other appliances, but when we bought the house they were brand new. They’re not top of the line, and we’re not completely in love with them, but they work and look a lot better than the appliances we had in the many rentals Ryne and I have lived in. The best part though is that we can use our water filtration system in our fridge which we haven’t been able to use as it was never hooked up. Adios Britta filter.
I still have a little bit of decor left to do, but I’m in no rush to figure that out just yet. And this will pretty much apply to every reveal I show you from here on out. The lesson I wrote about in our Living Room Reveal is that good things take time, and decorating your home fits perfectly into that bit of wisdom.
Overall, I LOVE this kitchen. It definitely still challenges me at times with the amount of storage options we have. However, I don’t want to be a hoarder of kitchen gadgets and knick knacks. I like the challenge that I only have so much cabinet space and shelf space, so I better use it intentionally and wisely. The murphy door was a huge storage win! It was installed only a week ago from me writing this post, so I’m still ogling over it. I also love how it adds to the quirky character of our home, with our hidden staircase to our loft, the tiny door that leads to our dungeon (basement), and our new pocket door that hides away our laundry and pantry. Basically a house with a lot of fun doors of all shapes and sizes…kind of like that wallpaper we put on one of those doors. Now this is getting deep! I think I could create a slogan that goes something like, “Norman Tudor House, full of open doors and endless possibilities. Which one will you choose?” I dunno…something like that.
Also I’m getting crazy off track here. Real it in Em.
Of course like I mentioned in our Living Room Reveal, I have a breakdown below of the decor and furniture items in each room along with the links as to where I purchased them.
So yes, yes, YES! This is our entertaining area—completely open, and exposed, and space to do cartwheels if you should so choose to—living room, dining room, and kitchen. So far, what's your favorite part? Or favorite room? I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below.
I want that…
Last Supper Crochet: Family heirloom
Wooden Fruit: Nashville Flea Market steal!
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