14 Years at 4114

It's hard to believe that we've been in this house almost 14 years! We've thought about moving lots of times, but we just end up talking ourselves out of it. Since it looks like we're going to be here a while longer, it was time to start doing some updating. There was no better place to start than the kitchen. 

These aren't officially "before" and "after" pics since I didn't think to take the first one until after we had already started the project.  We still have a little work to do (finish the lighting, some of the appliances, etc.), but this is the current state.

I started with choosing a color palate. We repainted not too long ago, so I kept those colors. We went with quartz countertops since they are supposed to be virtually indestructible and dark, hickory flooring throughout the kitchen, dining room, and living room. That's the problem with having a semi-open floor plan. When you start something in one room, it's hard to know where to stop! All the walls, floors, etc., are connected.

The first major project was repainting the cabinets. It was a family affair with Nathan removing all the hardware and Ashley helping me clean all those drawers and doors. I thought we had a small kitchen until we started working on all these! We bought a sprayer and Jeff got all of this plus one door sprayed in a few hours. I painted the frames and trim with a brush and that took most of a weekend.

Next, I tore out the old backsplash so the new countertops, sink, and faucet could be installed by the professionals. Jeff's always got a lot of junk in his trunk, but I laughed one day when I opened it to find everything INCLUDING the kitchen sink. 

I picked out the countertops and sink in about 30 minutes.  The faucet took a little longer, and I waffled on the backsplash for weeks and even polled a few friends and family for advice. 

Next up were the floors. I've had this vast expanse of nearly white carpet covered with a giant rug for the last few years, but here's what it looked like underneath. I will not miss the hours spent cleaning up spills and footprints!  We had the new flooring installed by professionals as well.

The last project we completed was installing the backsplash. We decided to try this ourselves, and it actually went rather well. We rented a wet saw and got most of it done in a weekend.

So after several months and countless trips to Home Depot, here's the finished  product. Though we will probably never be completely "finished', I feel good about what we've done so far.  Some friends asked us last night if we were getting ready to move, and all I could say is "I don't think so". We'll see... ;)