Our Kitchen Remodel
- Started
- Last post
- 57 Responses
- mg33
I posted over the summer that we were about to start remodeling the kitchen and living room in the condo that my fiance and I bought in December 2010. Figured that some of you would like to see the progress. We're almost done! Started in July and only have a few more things to do like lower cabinet doors (will be American Walnut), install surround sound speakers and finish off the fireplace wall with tile and tv mounted above it.
Original Kitchen
Everything ripped out
Living in Dexter's Kill Room
New kitchen wall and hardwood floor added
Cabinets being installed
Refinished hardwood floor (a long process to get this color)
New kitchen almost complete
White wall in center will have three panels of American walnut added
Using the blue in these mid-century chairs as an accent color throughout.
LED lighting above cabinets
It's been fun watching the whole thing come together. All cabinets and appliances are from Ikea. Doing custom lower cabinet doors because they don't have the color we want at Ikea. Really impressed with the quality and appliances are great. Induction cook top and electric convection oven are both pretty cool.
Will post some more pictures as we get things finished off in the next couple of months.
- nadanada0
this is sweet. i can't wait to buy a place and do this myself.
- scarabin0
swank, dude
classy lookin' place
- dobre0
Maaa, that is looking great! Dig the hardwood flooring blue chairs! How much does it all cost if I may know?
- don't askmonospaced
- look @ the work they've done & you begin to add it up, appliances, paint, stain, finish, lighting, etc. thou$and$********
- monospaced0
daaaaaaaaaaamn
- alicetheblue0
Its my dream kitchen!!!!
- also love the hardwood floor color.alicetheblue
- Thanks! It was a difficult process to say the least. We spent $300 just on test panels for them to figure it out.mg33
- monospaced0
I'm beyond jealous. I could see more color as you continue adding to the space around the kitchen. Love it man.
- can't wait to see the walnut panels when they're installedmonospaced
- Same here. see below - that's what we're hoping for.mg33
- tymeframe0
Looks amazing man.
- mg330
mono - this is the color we're hoping for.
That's actually a photo of furniture from Room and Board, and we're really hoping we can get almost the same for the cabinets and that back panel. Found one guy who could do solid wood for not much more than veneer cabinets.
- funny, as it looks so white and chocolate brown in the photo light, which is what I have in my house. good work though********
- funny, as it looks so white and chocolate brown in the photo light, which is what I have in my house. good work though
- ********0
FUCKING STELLAR, that's how you do it son!
Now modernize those couches!@
kidding... :-)
- We bought a new couch, just waiting to have it delivered to make sure all construction is done.mg33
- sweeeeeeeeeet, just sayin' the room is so fucking nice and modern, you need to match that up man, even if it's IKEA********
- http://s7d4.scene7.c…mg33
- That's the couch we bought. Super comfortable and fits in there perfectly.mg33
- sweet that'll look great********
- mg330
Really appreciate the comments! The other final part is finishing off the fireplace:
We're keeping the original fireplace but having it updated so that the burners are lower and can be covered in sand and stones instead of fake logs. Not sure if we're putting tile or a smooth stone around it, but we'll have a TV and speakers above it. Trying to keep the TV low... can't stand when they're too high up. Found really affordable, well reviewed in-wall speakers at www.monoprice.com and we'll have them sprayed to match the wall paint.
To the left of fireplace we're having a cabinet put in, also in walnut for tv/cable/stereo components, and hopefully shelves above that are also walnut. Not even started on that yet but waiting on quotes from someone.
- hey, that TV stand, nice work, where did you get that? Can't find the name of it. Mesh metal or something?********
- She bought it a long time ago. I'll see if she remembers.mg33
- Here
http://www.metro.com…Miesfan - awesome thanks!********
- metro is a direct buy affiliate, find one of those in your area, you'd be surprised********
- I did, Direct Buy, have an "appointment" in my area********
- hey, that TV stand, nice work, where did you get that? Can't find the name of it. Mesh metal or something?
- vaxorcist0
have fun.... it can be insane.... my ex-wife actually let me get the kitchen finished because it too so damn long for her to do it... then we got divorced... as it seemed our endless renovation distractions were the only things keeping us married...
- MondoMorphic0
Very nice!! Great work on that remodel and such a good investment!
- bogue0
Love the colour of the hardwood. what was the process?? I'm going to re-do mine at some point in the near future and this is pretty much how i saw it.
- e-pill0
i love seeing process builds!! really great work you guys done.
- mg330
Thanks again everyone!
bogue - The original floor was maple, kind of a light stain that's pretty typical for condos and apartments in Chicago. We didn't want to change out the whole floor, but knew we wanted something closer to gray. We actually saw some wooden-simulating tile floor that was gray and was INCREDIBLE. It was also $10+ a square foot. No thanks.
So our contractor worked with some wood guys to make samples of maple hardwood, with both a bleached and unbleached section. With the stain we were hoping for, we wanted to see how gray we could actually get. The bleaching would have helped that along.
Here's a sample:
The upper portion is not bleached. Lower portion is bleached but looks crappy in the lighting. I think both only have one coat of stain.
In the end, I think it came down to not bleaching it because that would have killed any personality to the wood grain. I think we have two coats of stain and a single coat of polyurethane.
We've been in a lot of places and not seen something of this color, which is nice. It's totally different in lights vs. daylight as well.
- IMO, darkening it was the way to go. Either walls lighter than flooring or vice versum.********
- Thanks so much! I just had my wife look at this post... i think we might be in agreement on this.bogue
- IMO, darkening it was the way to go. Either walls lighter than flooring or vice versum.
- fyoucher10
holy crap thats awesome
- mg330
fyoucher1 - We started in mid-July and have had a few weeks of inactivity here and there because our contractor got hurt, or waiting for stuff to be delivered. Just the way it goes. Hoped we'd be done already but we're fine with that.
All told I think the whole thing with finishing the fireplace will be just below $40K. We made some good decisions along the way to save money (Ikea cabinets most importantly, and cleaning/changing the current fireplace as opposed to getting a new one) but it has in fact gone above what we originally expected.
- i like that you dove in and created the space you wanted to live in instead of starting here and getting to it later, very inspiring********
- ... inspiring********
- much thanks. We closed and moved in Dec 2, 2010 and knew pretty quick we'd want to update it.mg33
- your equity went WAY up in doing this, especially in Chitown********
- You are correct on that. We also had to put in a new furnace in November. Going to refinance when all is done.mg33
- smart as fuck man********
- i like that you dove in and created the space you wanted to live in instead of starting here and getting to it later, very inspiring
- ********0
Hey mg33, what's your view like outside that nice window of yours?
