Pretty much since we bought our house, the kitchen was always the worst offender. In fact, B was sold on this house and had to convince me — the kitchen being one of my sticking points for the price of the house (which was over our budget). Also, the kitchen was green when we bought it, so that was another strike against it. So it’s very exciting to finally be in the process of planning out our kitchen renovation. Unfortunately our kitchen doesn’t have an ideal footprint where we would just be updating cabinets, countertops or flooring. In fact, we’re moving walls to extend the footprint to create an actual kitchen!
The Plan
As you can see above, we have a tiny little alcove with all of our cabinets, sink and stove… and then a larger room for our fridge and a bunch of other random pieces of furniture… our fridge used to be in a different spot when we got the house, but moved it to be less in the way… yeah it’s an odd configuration with a lot of wasted space in our “larger part” of the kitchen. Oh and did I mention, zero counter space?
The layout and our initial plan of what we thought we could do versus what is more practical have changed as we’ve worked through the logistics with my Uncle whose a contractor. He gave us some really good things that added space to our design, but also made us think through some practical and more functional design layouts which we took to heart and have incorporated into the final plans. One of my must-haves was quickly smashed with reality based on the space limitations we still have, so my kitchen sink will not be facing a window looking out into our backyard… 😢 Mainly because, we weren’t accounting on having a door still in our kitchen space, instead we would be putting a slider door out of our dinning room onto our patio. Unfortunately we quickly vetoed that because it would be about $5k, need HVAC reworking, and eat up about 2-feet or more of our patio for nice walk out steps. My uncle also felt from a functionality perspective, having a door in the kitchen to go in and out to grab stuff made more sense and the more we thought about it the more we agreed.
Another big part in this planning, is tempering expectations – we have a tiny footprint currently, so the updates and expansions we’re planning feel like we are going to be getting this massive and more open space… which we are, but not as much as we think. I’ve also been dreaming of a cozy little breakfast nook, but have even been doubting my initial vision for that, because I’m afraid we won’t have as much space as I’m thinking/hoping.
Also, don’t worry – we have actual cad plans of the space besides my poor measuring and rough sketch!
The inspiration
I must admit, I am usually one that has a vision and everything planned out – especially for our house projects, but this one is making me super indecisive and unconfident about what to choose. On one hand, I want to make some bold choices with flooring, or a cool backsplash… and on the other hand, I feel like I know I’ll end up keeping it pretty classic and timeless with simple and safer choices. But I want to push myself to picking at least one bold thing. The vibe I’m going for is glam, yet classic and cozy. We also will not be skimping on the finishes, from appliances (already half ordered🤞) to the hardware, lighting and faucets… oh! and heated floors.
I’m fairly confident we will end up going all white cabinets, although I do love a light blue/grey color – but I’m also in a green obsession (Thanks, Ashley Brooke!) so we shall see. Definitely going with gold finishes and maybe leaning towards a rich butcher block counter top and tile floors. But if we do end up picking a stone countertop, it sounds like Quartz is the resounding and durable choice.
Soooo many things to decide! B and I are planning to go do some window shopping at a few different spots to scope out flooring, backsplash and maybe even a direction on cabinets. For now, we are still working on finalizing the actual floor plans with our amazing friend and then we’ll be getting our contractor in here to talk numbers and timing. We’re hoping we won’t have to do anything structurally, but there is that chance still. We are also really hoping we can get this done in 2021 — but are also realistic that we may need to push to 2022. Here’s to hoping we have a brand new kitchen in time for Christmas!
Lastly, if you’ve made it this far – what do you love/hate with your kitchen remodel? What do you wish you would’ve done differently or can’t live without? Comment below, or shoot me a private message!
We had two different ideas on how we could do this. Mine was making planter boxes and B’s was building up the ground and using rocks to build a sort of wall. I quickly sold B on the planter box idea, for a few reasons — (1) we could customize the dimensions and look however we wanted to fit our space and (2) the stones I would want to put in the backyard would be expensive, as I’m not the biggest fan of the more generic ones you can find in stock at home improvement stores. Thus the planning begun and the measurements started. We ended up adding in a second planter box to the right of the main area to help B out with another dead grassy area that he hates!
The larger planter box we made was 8ft by 4ft and the smaller planter box was 4ft x 3ft, both 18 inches tall. We used 2×4’s for the posts and then used pressure treated wood for the exterior sides and stained them for extra weathered protection. We cut all of the wood and I stained it while B worked on getting the holes dug for the support beams.
Once we got the boxes in place, we felt super accomplished and add top pieces to help finish them off! From there we ended up lining the insides with a 
Once we finished the edging off, it really brought this space to life and separated it from the rest of the yard — without taking away too much from our green space (which was a constant concern for me!). We got three yards of dirt delivered pretty quickly – for the record, we ordered way to much and could’ve gotten away with two and a half yards or so. We also got this delivered on one of those red hot July days, B busted his butt and filled the planters (not recommended). When we actually got to planting, we had to remove a lot of dirt so that was why we ordered too much! For the plants, we knew we wanted to get arborvitaes for the large planter box to add a bit more privacy, so we did our research and visited the nursery to pick out trees! We ended up buying a bit more expensive ones that were already 4+ft tall. We also kept going back and forth between getting two or three — we ended up choosing three knowing that we will need to trim and maintain them a bit more!
For the smaller planter box we got a hydrangea – which I think I’m going to switch out for a Limelight version, like we have in 
For our pantry makeover – I ended up painting the entire inside, this is one of the few spaces that lingering green from the previous owners – and although I’m a fan of some color, I love what white paint does to a space, especially a small one! Since this space is not the greatest constructed – I didn’t want to mess around too much so I stuck with aesthetics and just updated the existing layout & pieces. Here is the evolution off the de-greening. 
The other benefit of cleaning up the pantry was I ended up organizing and consolidating some things like our tin-foil, plastic wrap and sandwich bags into a hanger on the pantry door which basically freed up an entire drawer in our kitchen! So the organizing, consolidating and purging spread out beyond the pantry which actually gave us room for things. With using up leftover paint we had, and buying some organizers and the leftover wallpaper I spent about $60 for a small thing of paint and 10-different organizers. I’m unsure about adding labels, so I may still add a few more fun and functional finishing touches.
Sources: 
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the bee life 