First Floor Bath, off Kitchen and Den Hallway During Construction Phase

This is the remodeled bathroom on the first floor. There was a baby blue tiled tub enclosure there before with a built in cabinet above the tub that gave the tub area a very cave like feel. We decided not to recreate that look with the new bath and built in a tub with white subway tiles on the tub walls and tub front. It is open on top and has a very airy feel now. We wainscoted the walls to about 36 inches in the remainder of the room with a ledge on top for small items like candles and such. We also ordered a cabinet for this bath from Lafata that is the same as the Kitchen cabinets. Since the rooms are close to one another it made sense to have them cohesive and have some flow. The color we chose on the bathroom walls is Heritage Gold also from Sherwin Williams. The floor tile which you can't see in these pics is a white octagon tile with a black accent tile. Also is a black rope tile around the top of the tub wall that is not pictured.


Wall above the Cabinet

Kitchen During Construction Phase

Here is our New Open Kitchen!

This is our cabinet guy checking out the install.

These pics were taken right after the installation of the cabinets and before all appliances or counter tops had been installed. The cabinets are made of hickory and have a Carmel color stain to them. They are a mission style door which works well with the home's 1920 style and is both contemporary yet traditional. We chose to bring color in with our paint choices....this is a bright warm green color by Sherwin Williams called Ryegrass.

Kitchen Cabinets and Layout

We decided to go with Lafata Cabinets for the kitchen and first floor bath. We liked the idea of going with a local Michigan company who had a quality product and a variety of price ranges to choose from. We shopped the big box stores and a lot of what was offered was nice but nothing we could get excited about. Price wise, Lafata came in about the same and when all was said and done we got a good deal and a product from a local factory. "Support Michigan Business" He are a couple pictures of the computer graphic layout of our new kitchen. I will follow with some more post installation pics in a day or two.

Demo the Kitchen

We had the kitchen taken down to the studs so that we could run all new electrical, move gas lines and plumbing and add a hardwood floor to match the rest of the house. We were lucky enough to enlist the help of our neighbor Andy the Architect to help with the new kitchen layout. Thank you Andy. We still owe you dinner. Since it is only Dave and I living there and we had a formal dining room, we didn't need an eat in kitchen. So we opted for a open concept kitchen with an island with counter seating for two. The open wall is the wall that divides the first floor bath from the kitchen. There was a header that ran across that wall that divided the hallway to the bathroom and den that we opened up to make the ceiling appear open and to have more flow from room to room.

Kitchen Before Pictures

Here are some kitchen before pictures for your viewing pleasure!! Like I said it was kind of a mess and needed a face lift.
As you can see it had some beautiful old woodwork around the doors and a nice openness to the addition with a doorwall that opened to the deck and backyard. But it also had bad un matched wood molding around the beam and ceiling that looked horrible and had to go. It also had really bad old crappy fiberboard cabinets and a horrible flow to it. It was a U-shaped kitchen and with not nearly enough cabinet space for me and all my stuff. Being Greek and loving to cook, a nice kitchen was a must!

In the Beginning......

I was looking at some before and after pics today of our home renovation. And thought maybe this is something I should write about to share our experience and perhaps encourage or maybe discourage others from doing the same! (hopefully encourage) We started planning the project in December of 06. Our 1920's Bungalow was my husband's (fiance' at the time) home of about 10 years. He had lived there and really done pretty much nothing to it other than a new roof and maintenance minimal stuff...like cutting the lawn! So when we decided to get married part of the deal was that we were going to keep the house and renovate. The truth is that we absolutely love the neighborhood and line living within walking distance to downtown. And the house had some wonderful bones and character and was well worth a face lift and some TLC. Needless to say it was a huge task but became a labor of love. The project got underway in April of 07 and lasted throughout the summer. All this was going on while we were planning our wedding for that coming August and also dealing with a death in the family of Dave's mom to cancer only two weeks before our wedding. What a year 2007 was! Anyway, the entire project consisted of a complete new kitchen, two new bathrooms, new drywall throughout to cover the old crumbly plaster, complete blow in wall insulation, new heating and cooling, electrical, and a 2ND floor laundry room. So, I will try to blog this as well as possible and go room by room so this will hopefully make the most sense. Hope you enjoy seeing our house and hope it gives you some ideas for your home! Thanks for reading and looking,
Linda