We made a few kitchen updates in January and today I’m sharing our kitchen transformation from when we purchased the house in November 2014 to now.
Our new kitchen has been complete for about a month now so I thought it’s about time to share the updates on the blog. Luckily, I was able to pull a few photos from the real estate listing of the before kitchen which shows the original kitchen so you can see the full transformation.
As you can see, our old kitchen had standard builder’s grade cabinetry with a wood tone and cheap, ugly brown countertops complimented with a rough natural stone backsplash. The floor was a brown square tile that I hated. The kitchen also had a huge rectangular fluorescent light above the island and a hideous chandelier in the little breakfast nook.
It was a basic kitchen and I loved nothing about it.
When we first moved in, <3M and I repainted all the cabinets white which helped brighten the area and installed hardware on all the drawers and cupboards. We also swapped out the fluorescent light for the glass pendant lights you see now (something I’m still not crazy about but thought I’d love when purchased) and changed the chandelier for the hanging shade (another purchase I’m still meh about).
These original changes were cheap and minimal and slowly helped improve the space. After these initial updates, we saved for a couple of years and finally had our floors on the entire first floor updated in December 2017. It was a whole hot mess that I never blogged about because I couldn’t relive the dust, cold, and cleaning we endured for the week it took to tear out and install the new tile. But the floors, a wood tile installed by The Carpet Stop, are something I love and I couldn’t be happier with the final look.
This year, our big project was updating the backsplash and countertops. I knew I wanted a white and gray kitchen. I love how clean a white kitchen looks and I love the way a gray & white kitchen makes the space appear bright and fresh.
Before landing on an installer, we had a couple estimates from a few different places and finally settled on JL Cabinet & Granite for our countertops after a coworker recommended them to me. JL Cabinet & Granite was by far the cheapest quote we came across and it included the full countertop and backsplash demo, stone, countertop installation, and a new large, one bowl sink.
For the countertops, I chose a quartz called carrara marmi that looks similar to marble. It’s white with small light veining that provides depth to the stone. Originally, I had my heart set on granite or marble countertops but after researching different stones, quartz was the more reasonable option when it came to both price and durability.
Doesn’ that cake look tasty? It’s a grapefruit cake, recipe here!
To contrast the quartz countertops, I found a neutral gray subway tile on Wayfair. I was very particular with the gray tile selection as I wanted something warmer without blue undertones. My fear was choosing a tile with blue undertones that would pick up on the navy blue wall in the living room and make the kitchen appear more blue than gray.
After a few tile samples from Lowes, Home Depot, and Wayfair, I finally found a winner. For the tile installation, we hired a contractor on Thumbtack who quoted us cheaply and go the job done with only a few communication & timing bumps along the way.
The last few updates to our kitchen included the new sink, 
Overall, I really like our new kitchen. It’s fresh and clean, just as I wanted, with lots of light.
However, the biggest win in my book is the sink! The deep, one bowl sink is a game changer. I love that it fits all my pans and cookie trays. It also means I can ‘hide’ dirty dishes in there quickly in the morning because they actually fit in the sink, unlike my previous, tiny double sink.
So, is this my dream kitchen? No, but that’s not what we were going for. We were looking for updates that fit the current space and layout on a budget (we actually came in under budget!) and I’m pretty stoked with where we landed.
