An 80’s kitchen remodel complete with a rotary phone renovated into an open & dreamy white chef’s kitchen with a large marble island.
This kitchen reveal has been a long time coming.
We had originally planned on waiting to renovate our kitchen. But then, almost exactly a year ago, the original stove/oven broke on our 3rd use. Granted, it was from the 80’s, but still!
And it’s not like we had been overusing it. The second time was when my mother-in-law reheated her pizza in it & the third time was when my husband was also re-heating pizza.
Yes, we do love our pizza!
So our options were to either buy a new stove/oven for immediate use & hope that it would later fit into our plans for our new kitchen (at the time we hadn’t decided how we wanted to rearrange the kitchen) or just go ahead & start renovating.
Of course, we chose the more expensive of the two options!
Plus, it’s kind of embarrassing having a pantry that has blue stains running down the back wall…
But seriously, what is blue that could be spilled halfway up a wall & leave vein-like streaks all the way down it?
Anyways!
We knew we wanted to open up our kitchen and make it brighter. In the right corner was a large pantry that felt awkwardly placed, especially as it had two doors to enter it, which meant there wasn’t as much storage space as one would hope.
And if you notice, there was even an old rotary phone hanging on the wall of the pantry!
In the end, we decided to completely gut the kitchen.
We tore out all of the cabinets, the island, the tile floor (a whole other story), the wallpaper border, & the walls of the pantry.
Once everything was completely stripped down I cleaned the walls, we hired a handyman to patch up the walls, we had electrical moved, & I repainted the whole kitchen.
I felt a little silly repainting the whole kitchen since we knew we were just going to cover it up with new cabinets & appliances, but as it hadn’t been repainted since it was built in the 80’s we decided it could use a fresh coat.
Which turned out to be a good idea as we had to have some of the cabinets reordered/replaced & we didn’t end up installing the backsplash until over 6 months after the rest of the kitchen was completed.
And I must say, I love the color! It’s a purplish-grey & it’s beautiful. Although Roger didn’t realize it had a hint of purple in it until it was too late! Lucky for me!
We’ve Moved!
Check out our NEW kitchen here!
In the midst of all of this, we spent hours working with Lowe’s & a sweet woman named DeeDee who was incredibly kind & patient.
Since we removed the pantry we decided to expand our kitchen into the breakfast/dining area. I love having a special breakfast area for the coffee maker & homemade treats!
Even more so I love having a big open kitchen! And that island is a dream come true!
We decided to go with an all-white kitchen to brighten the space even more. And marble counters have always been our dream so we decided to splurge & we picked our favorite.
We also wanted to make sure that all of our renovations would appeal to others & increase our resale value. After doing some research we discovered that bathroom & kitchen renovations are two of the best renovations to increase the value of your home.
So we made sure to spend extra time & attention to detail in those rooms.
But back to the renovation process.
In the midst of ordering our cabinets & marble Roger & I worked on installing fossilized bamboo flooring throughout the first floor of our home.
We started in our kitchen, as we knew we needed to get it done first.
And luckily we had it all finished up by the time the cabinets arrived & were installed.
Next, our marble was installed & then finally the appliances arrived. Just in time too!
We were able to host Christmas in our home for the first time last year.
Oh, & the backsplash?
We were so exhausted from our summer & fall renovations that we didn’t get around to doing the backsplash until the beginning of summer!
Now our kitchen (& whole home) renovation is complete & we can spend our time cooking & baking instead of renovating!
ps. I just realized that there aren’t any pictures of the fridge where the pantry use to be! Oops! Luckily, next week I will be sharing a Christmas Home Tour & I’ll be sure to include a picture of that corner of our kitchen! [thrive_2step id=’12522′]Don’t miss it! Click here to sign up for my weekly newsletter![/thrive_2step]
What do you think of our renovated kitchen?
I’d love to hear from you!
Feel free to comment below, email me, or tweet me on Twitter.
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With love, Giustina
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;
God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
1 Corinthians 1:27 NIV
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