We moved into our home in the Fall of 2006, and while I loved the home and the potential it offered our growing family, I've always had ideas of how I would make it "my own"! But until recently, the only ideas that came to fruition were those that involved very little money, mostly paint and home decor items.
Finally this winter we decided it was time to make some more major renovations! The kitchen area was feeling too small for 7 people, let alone any kind of entertaining, and the contractor grade carpet in high traffic areas was far past its prime!
My original idea included moving walls, converting the formal living room into a dining room, and significantly enlarging the kitchen. However, when the bid for that project came back at around $80,000, I realized that the cost of structural changes far outweighed the actual benefits to the living space, so I started thinking of ways to get the most improvement without changing the floor plan.
The main factor that led to our remodel was the kitchen. For a 3600 sf home with six bedrooms & 4 baths, the kitchen was tiny and impractical! The island was placed so close to the rest of the kitchen, that anytime the fridge, oven, or dishwasher was open, traffic halted. And there was really only room for one person in the work space without it becoming crowded and impassible. I was constantly telling everyone to "stay out of the L!!"
I've included a few past pictures of us in the kitchen to give an idea of the size and layout we started with: 
With solid wood cabinets, updated appliances and a subway tile backsplash, the old kitchen was not necessarily a bad kitchen! It just needed space for more people!
My solution was simple: push the island about 2 feet farther from the rest of the kitchen! While this seems simple enough, the problem was that the tile in the kitchen ended right behind the counter stools, and carpet began. So, the flooring would have to be extended as well. Since matching 10 year old tile & grout would be difficult, if not impossible, the kitchen required a new floor. I also hoped to add to the somewhat limited cupboard space by extending the upper cabinets all the way to the ceiling.
I toyed with the idea of keeping the original cabinets, but I decided that if I was going to replace flooring, I may as well go for it and get the kitchen I really want. I also considered having my cabinets refinished in white (the color I really wanted!), but that still didn't solve the problem of wasted space above the existing cabinets. Since my ceilings are 9' high, it seemed a shame to use the area above the cabinets only for decoration, when what I really needed was more storage space!
So I made the decision to replace the entire kitchen, moving the island back, having cabinets to the ceiling, and also adding a hood above the stove that would vent to the outside! I am very particular about smells, and will avoid cooking certain foods if they make my entire house smell. So my dream has always been to have a hood that carries the smells away, rather than just recirculating or blowing air around.
As we moved into the planning stage, I debated what to do for cabinets. I have been in Ikea hundreds of times and always love their kitchens. But I wasn't sure if they were good enough quality to want to fill my kitchen with one.
I have a friend whose neighbor has an Ikea kitchen, so one day I stopped by just to look at it. They had their kitchen installed several years ago, so I figured I could get an idea of how well it held up. And I was amazed at how great it still looked. And frankly, Ikea has organization down to a tee.
The last Saturday in April, I went to Ikea's website to see if I could design a kitchen that would work in my space. And it was either luck or divine providence, but it turned out that Ikea was offering 20 percent off all their kitchens, ending THAT DAY! Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day at Ikea designing and ordering my kitchen and saving tons of money!
Doing a kitchen through Ikea is not nearly as simple as just letting the contractor design & install your kitchen, but I really enjoy doing it, so I actually preferred to be so involved! To save money on the installation, I assembled the cabinet bases myself (I'm pretty good at it now, let me know if you need help!). And apparently the kitchen I chose is pretty popular, because dozens of "parts" were out of stock, and I made more trips to the store than I can count. In fact, I have the kitchen department's number memorized, and I know all the workers there on a first name basis! ;) But having done an Ikea kitchen, I would totally recommend it! The workers were so nice & helpful, and the great thing is that if something gets damaged, I can easily replace a single cabinet door or drawer front without worrying about who did my cabinets & whether or not I can match them again. We even ended up buying our hood, microwave & apron sink from Ikea, and all of them are very good quality and look fantastic!
the rest of the old tile had to go. Brett happened to be out of town, so I enlisted the help of a couple of
strong 13 year old boys! It was just the thing for them!
I'll show the completed kitchen in just a moment... But first, a couple of the other projects that were going on!
Lighting and Window
The family room before construction. Notice the odd placement of the light & fan,
the bulges in the carpet, and the size of the window.
Our family room was decent sized, but it had 2 problems: lighting and the window. Our family room measures 16' x 20' at its widest, yet the builders had only put one wimpy dome light in the middle of the room, along with a ceiling fan that was off to the side of the room. Ridiculous! I had tried to make up for the lack of light by using lots of lamps, and while this helped, it can never really replace the brightness you get from good overhead lighting. So one of the first projects in the house was to upgrade the lighting in the family room.
The electrician came early on, before we had even started demolition. So here is a picture of the room after his first visit: fan centered, new LED lights. This picture was taken during the day, so the room is pretty bright anyway and doesn't really do justice to the change. But at night, it's like day at night! (pun intended)
Later, an electrician would come back to add LED lights to both the kitchen and the master bedroom, as well as hang the pendant lights above the kitchen island.
Now, about that window....
Our home has pretty decent windows and lets in quite a bit of light. The one exception was the window in the family room. Measuring 4' deep & 5' wide, and being set up high in the wall, it was pathetic. We couldn't even see into our own backyard through it, let alone get a good view of the mountains that emerge across the road from our neighborhood! And this was a part of the remodel that required some structural changes, so I was a little nervous about how the price would be. But on KSL I found a great "window" guy who lives in American Fork, does windows as a side job, and is a personal friend to my neighbor. AND his prices were extremely reasonable! So I went for it, so to speak. With many of the projects, we hesitated between doing them all now, or waiting and doing them over time. But honestly, I just wanted to get the mess out of the way once & for all! So I booked the window guy for Memorial Day weekend when we would be out of town, and wouldn't mind having a gaping hole in the back of our house!
Luckily my neighbor was in town for the weekend, so she documented the window project for me! We added one foot to the depth of the window, and 2 feet to the width, but altogether the window went from an opening of 20sf to 35sf.
It took a few weeks after completion of the window to get plantation shutters ordered and installed, but this difference this window made in the family room is enormous! It lightens the room, makes it feel bigger, and connects the indoors to the outdoors!
Next step: Paint!
The builders of our home economized by use a single tone of paint through the ENTIRE house. Walls, trim, floorboards, ceilings were all the same beige-y color. And I have never been happy with it. Initially, I thought it was the color that I disliked, so I tried painting different rooms different colors. However, I came to realize that what I really did not like about it was the lack of contrast. I wanted the trim to be white! I called a couple painters to get bids on painting all the trim & doors, and one of them told me, "The paint needed for this project will cost about $200. But my labor will increase the amount exponentially, to about $2000. If you're a do-it-yourselfer, this is an easy way to save money." SO.... I decided we would do the paint ourselves. After all, it was only the doors & trim, right? And paint is one thing I know how to do, unlike many of the other parts of the house that needed a professional!
So I began right away painting the trim. I decided it would be best to do it BEFORE replacing the flooring so I wouldn't have to worry so much about spilling paint on the floor. Every other day or so while the kids were at school, I would whip out the paint & do a couple doorways or rooms. And it looked AMAZING! If I had known what a difference a little bit of paint could have made, I would have painted the trim YEARS ago!
The doors were a bit trickier. I painted a couple of them with a brush and roller, putting nails in the end, then balancing them on 5 gallon buckets to rotate & paint each side. And while it worked well and looked good, I realized it was going to take EONS to paint all the doors that way. So we got the brilliant idea to borrow a paint sprayer and do the doors all at once! We had a few mishaps along the way, starting with a gallon of paint falling out of the back of the car & exploding in the driveway. We also forgot a gasket on the paint sprayer, and ending up spraying ourselves more than anything! And we were so glad we had chosen a room with carpet slated for demo, because the floor got a coat of paint as well! But overall, it was a quick way to get a lot of doors done in a short time!
We finished painting all the doors in May, but did not bother to hang them back up until all the flooring was done! That way they weren't in the way of the hardwood guys. The one exception? The bathrooms, of course!
Next step: the steps!
I don't love that the first thing you see when you enter my front door is the stairs. Especially since they displayed the same contractor-grade carpet as the rest of the house, which had seen better days. Having tan carpet, tan walls, and brown wood railings was just too much TAN! So boring.
I thought long and hard about what to put on the stairs themselves. Hardwood to match the rest of the main floor was a logical choice, but our stairs are so long and steep that I worried about people slipping down the stairs! We don't wear shoes in our house, and walking around sock-footed on hardwood stairs would be a bit precarious.
I really liked the two-tone look of stairs that I had seen on Pinterest, as shown below:
And while I would have loved to replace the entire banister, the cost was pretty prohibitive. We settled for having it refinished; not just repainted (wears off too easily!), but sprayed with a lacquer finish that holds up well to a lot of use. And since the ball at the bottom of the banister was a bit dated, I had my son saw it off and added a more modern cap to the rail.
The stairs with the new oak treads on them, before lacquer, and with
the board & batten we installed along the staircase (notice my sawed-off banister?)
I did not find a stair-runner carpet that I liked, so I ordered several smaller runners from Wayfair.com and had the carpet layers cut and install them on the stairs after the lacquer.
Finally done, I love the new look as you enter the home!
And now for: the front room!
I'm not really a fan of front rooms. In the 9 years we have lived in this home, we have used our front room for different things: formal living room (it literally only got used when the home teachers came!), TV room (being right down the stairs from bedrooms, didn't work very well at bedtime!), and music room. And while I tried decorating it with paint & curtains, it never felt very useful. In fact, it was the biggest area of wasted space in the house, and it sat right as you walk in the front door! It became a catch-all for shoes & backpacks as kids came in the door from school.
The front room was still an enigma to me: what to do with it? The flooring was going to be replaced, but otherwise I didn't necessarily HAVE to make any changes. But I wanted something more eye-popping as the first room you see upon entering my home.
Then one day I had a stroke of inspiration! I remembered that my younger sister had inherited a grand piano when our great-aunt died, and the piano was still in an apartment in Provo while my sister traveled the world. And I decided that a piano, even if it took up the entire room, would be just the thing! And I wanted floor to ceiling bookshelves to occupy the far wall.
I had seen the following on Pinterest (pinned from the Makerista's website):
And we did!
Here's a bit of the process:
Top: Attaching boards to the wall to anchor the bookshelves to;
Bottom: Anchoring the assembled bookshelves to the wall.
Top: installing the moldings all around the bookshelves;
Bottom: Bookshelves with moldings installed & painted
And finally, the room completed!
It was a few weeks before we could get the piano moved in, and that was just the icing on the cake!
As you can see, the piano gets A LOT of use!
A panorama before the piano:
Next up, the fireplace!
Don't get me wrong, there was nothing technically wrong with our fireplace. It just looked like it belonged in a cabin, not my house!
Here's the before:
And here's what I had in mind:
And here's what I had in mind:
And here are the awesome guys getting it how I wanted! (boy, was THAT a mess!)
And finally, here's my new fireplace:
As seen with the rest of the completed family room
OK, I'll show you the kitchen now!
So, naturally, the last thing done was the kitchen. Because even when the kitchen was installed, we had to wait 2 weeks to get countertops, which meant STILL NO KITCHEN SINK! In other words, we had everything BUT the kitchen sink! I put boards on top of the base cabinets, so we had a work surface. And the fridge & stove were plugged back in, so we could use both of those, we just didn't have a working sink or dishwasher. And in retrospect, 2 weeks is not a very long time. But when you are in the middle of it, it seems like a very long time! We tried to use paper plates, etc, as much as possible. However, some members of my family felt like they were above using paper (won't mention any names!), plus, you can't very well prepare food using paper. So I always had a laundry basket handy for dirty dishes, then every few days when it got full, I would go to a neighbors and wash dishes! I have very nice neighbors! :)
From June 29-July 1 I got to leave town for girls' camp, but when I got back (on my 20th anniversary, no less!) I had countertops! And a sink! And a dishwasher! HOORAY! I will never take those for granted again!
Alas, all was not done. It took almost 3 more weeks for all of the cabinet doors to come in stock at IKEA, and there are still a few touch-up projects that I will tackle once the kids go back to school... and I catch up on all the other things I got behind in! But for the most part, we are done, and I LOVE my new home!
