Hi all! Welcome to my first ever blog post! I’m SO excited we are finally in the midst of our kitchen renovation. I hope this information can help you if you are thinking about a similar project or need some inspiration for your next project. Let’s get into it!
Here are some before pictures. This is right before construction started in October 2023.
Our Colonial Brick House:
We bought this house in 2020 right in the middle of covid when the real estate market opened back up. Although the house needed some work, it had a lot of charm and we saw potential with future projects. We decided this was the house we could see ourselves living in for the long haul and luckily our offer was accepted! In early 2022 we reached out to a few reputable contractors in our area and had plans drawn up. Life took an unexpected turn in the spring of 2022 so we put the project on hold for a bit. Now it’s the end of 2023 and we feel blessed and fortunate to be starting this exciting project to serve as the heart of our home where we can entertain family and friends.
October 2023: Bumping the kitchen out & demolition
The original kitchen was separate from the dining room and garage with no mudroom or island. Although it was cozy & quaint, we decided we needed a little more space when our families visited or if we wanted to entertain more. Our contractor drew up plans to have the kitchen bumped out onto our current patio, attach the garage to the kitchen through a new mudroom and remove the wall between the kitchen and dining room to make it more of an open concept. The first step was to dig the new area for a crawl space and foundation. Once a new sump pump and French drain were added they poured concrete to started on framing the addition.
Once the framing and new walls were up outside, they got started on demolishing our original kitchen. This is where the fun part began! We decided we would live through the construction since it’s only affecting a portion of our first floor. The contractors put plastic walls with zippers up so we could access the area from the inside if we needed to. We moved our fridge and a small table into a portion of the dining room that isn’t being worked on yet. We made a coffee station and set up a toaster oven in our living room. Silly me sold our microwave the first week of construction! I also set up a TV tray outside of our powder room to dry dishes. So far it hasn’t been horrible! We’ve been living off a lot of salads, frozen food that my mother in law made and takeout!
Once the inside was demolished, they got started on framing the mudroom, adding a steel beam in the ceiling where the wall between our kitchen and dining room once was and framing out doors and windows. The electrician came to install wires where the outlets, light fixtures and appliances will be. Then the plumber came to work on pipes for appliances, the pot filler and sink and the HVAC team came to work on vents for heating and cooling. Once that was finished, insulation was installed and dry wall was hung on the walls and ceiling.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post. Next up is paint, door installs and trim work. Stay tuned for more about the renovation as well as design boards to see how I’m visualizing the space once it’s complete!
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