Kitchen Reno

We purchased this home for our daughter to live in while in Physical Therapy School. We looked at 25 houses in Memphis, TN. I have lived in area all my life, and I saw parts of Memphis, that I had never been in. When we walked into this one, I thought at least this one has been updated. I think, I may have been really tired of looking, because I didn’t catch a couple of things.   But it would not have mattered really, because the house was in pretty good shape and in the area of town that we wanted.

We had looked at houses with metal cabinets, or just old cabinets.  Someone had extended that tile backsplash down for the countertop.  But, down there in the corner where that microwave is, it was completely different tile! I could not believe that I overlooked that. But, again the houses were flying off the market at this time. Offers had to be put in on the day of the listing, or they were gone.

And while we were sitting in the floor scrubbing grout, my daughter says, why is that door so dark.  The cabinet door under the sink was a flat panel.  I couldn’t believe it.  All the other cabinet doors were raised panel doors. Actually, there were two flat panel doors. I got online and searched for the style doors that were there and got lucky! They weren’t cheap but the style was almost the same.

                                                    Who knew, that the grout was white…….

We had decided that we wanted to paint them white.  We went to Lowes and looked at cabinets in stock to see if we could find a color that we liked. Then we went and picked out paint chips to find something close.  We used Valspar w/primer.  When you take your doors off, number them, so they will be put back in the right spot.  I did a light sanding before we painted.

We used sawhorses and placed two by fours across the space and laid the cabinet doors on to paint. It was easier having the doors at waist level. We painted one side, waited for them to dry overnight, flipped and painted the other side. We finally had finished all the painting. I kept thinking that the inside of the lower cabinets seemed off or messed up and I was to soon see why! My husband decided he just couldn’t wait to get granite counter tops. We got an estimate for the granite and Steve mentioned that he hoped we could get the counter tops off without tearing up the cabinets.  We did, but then I could see why things looked weird.  I told hubs, that we were not putting granite on this junk.  So, every bottom cabinet on that side came out.

 And it really was a good thing, because the wall had been patched behind the cabinets and not very well.  We tore more sheet rock off and put in wall insulation around all those water lines. Then put new sheetrock up! Can you say, frozen pipes?

                            At least we shut the door to the mice that had been coming in through there.

                               Back to Lowes for base cabinets and another gallon of the cabinet paint.

I guess this is the only picture that I took of new cabinets going back in.  This was not an easy task.  Shims, shims and shims to make everything level from the front to back and side to side. This was a job! Actually, we flipped a house a couple years after this, and we paid to have the cabinets installed.

Here is the finished product.  We went with the granite over the washer/dryer adding more counter top space. A kitchen to be proud of.

Someone had installed some little crappy trim across the top of the cabinets that came down.  I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted but decided on using a chair rail. 

 My daughter wanted navy wall color. I hate picking paint! Luckily, Lowes sells small sample paints, and we bought multiple samples to get the right one. This kitchen turned out really nice! Over where they had a little bar, a small breakfast table could be accommodated, if wanted. We were very pleased with how it turned out!

As always, Thanks for dropping by. I would love a follow and a comment. If you have any questions about what we did, please ask.

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