Beginning to end…
It all started because I wanted to change cabinet fronts and paint them rather than oak stain. I also wanted to replace our appliances. I found the doors I wanted to purchase at a lumber yard and was going to get matching paint for the carcasses. When I got my husband to the store to look at the doors, he, like he always does, said, “I can make those, easy”. I said, like I always do, “well if you want to, but if it’s going to be a pain, let’s just buy them”. We pondered it a while (like weeks or months) and discussed the fact that it was going to be a lot of work to repaint the carcasses. (That’s the kind of work neither of us likes.) It would require stripping, sanding, the painting, and we were still concerned that the paint on the doors would not match the paint on the carcasses. After much deliberation, he decided that he would rather make all new cabinets. While I am the type to just want it done in a few weeks or even months, I knew this was going to give me the best results and I could change the cabinets up and design them how I wanted. THAT is what is fun to me! Organizing, designing, making things user friendly, giving everything a place, making it look neat…that’s what I love! I decided we were going to be a great team! I design it, he makes it happen! You gotta love a man like that! While this decision isn’t the best decision for everyone, for many reasons, there are many things you can take away from our experiences. We hope you will share what you like about it and anything that you were able to find helpful. Here is our amazing kitchen remodel journey “before” pictures…
In order to start building the cabinets, I had to figure out what I wanted to changed about them and then get the rough estimates of the new dimensions to my handsome carpenter. Of course, I had pinned tons of pics on pinterest but I needed to combine all those possibilities to our kitchen. I knew I was always drawn to the looks of the multi height cabinets and the ones with different depths as well, so I looked at our layout to see which cabinets would be the best ones to raise and make deeper. I also took into consideration which ones I needed to be bigger, of course, because I do not have a pantry. You will see in the pictures an armoire that we put at the end of our cabinets to use as a pantry for years. It held what I needed it to but was way too bulky looking for it’s space. It also interfered with people being able to get seated at the table without having to have someone get up from their seat. “Armoire, you served me well, but I can’t say I’m sad to see you go”. (I was actually wishing I had a room to move it to!) Now, it’s off to find a wall paint…on this wall, I like this one but, on that wall, I liked that one. What? Well, anyway, after many samples and grueling over the wall paint, we decided on Accessible Beige from Sherwin-Williams. It is the paint on the ceiling in the middle picture. I am so happy with it that we now have it in the whole house and we used it on the ceiling, as well. I was thrilled when my husband said he would put in can lighting, I wasn’t sure how he would feel about that but it made the world of difference.
Accessible Beige paint and the new lighting. 
New Laundry door which is usually kept open.
I love the look of wide drawers instead of cabinets for bottom storage and now I am a firm believer that they are the only way to go! I did go with doors to the left of my sink because I had already gotten someone really nice to install pull-outs in that cabinet and I didn’t find it to be beneficial to change them to drawers. The pull-outs also make it easier to see your cans which is what I use that cabinet for. I also put those pull-outs under my kitchen sink. One is for cleaners and the other side holds two trash cans. I highly recommend these pull-outs if you are doing cabinets instead of drawers for below so that you are able to access your items much better. They are worth their weight in gold!
The decision on which cabinets to change and add had to be decided by putting them to paper in order to see what the different sections would look like. We decided to take the cabinets all the way down to where the end of the armoire was and even further! We took them the length of the whole wall! I did however decide it would be better to drop the end 3′ back to a more shallow depth and height allowing people to pass behind dinner chairs easier, to be seated. ( I really didn’t want to lose the space by maker the cabinet smaller but I knew it would look better and be more functional with the table where it had to be.)
After drawing the designs out a few times, I chose to make my two biggest cabinets even taller and deeper. By making them deeper, I also had room for platters that were bigger around than dinner plates and I have a few of those so I was happy about having a space for them in the kitchen. I would be using the other big one for pantry foods so that was a huge bonus there. In order to match the top and bottom cabinets the right lengths at the ends, I had about ten inches or so on the top I could use so we put a pull-out cabinet in the middle to store jello, small baking goods, etc. It also gave the cabinets a variance in their appearance.
Small Pull-out 
Small Pull-out
The bottoms were easy to figure out because I knew they would all be drawers for the most part and I just had to determine, based on what was in them, how wide they would each be. I also had some crystal and china I wanted to be able to see but didn’t want all glass fronts so I made the smaller cabinet and drawers at the end for that and love, love, love it! I keep all my coffee cups in a drawer under the crystal cabinet. It’s just the right height and holds all my cups from our favorite vacations! (It’s full now though.)
On the stove/refrigerator side there aren’t many cabinets or counter spaces but the ones that are there pack a big punch to the dimensions and look of the kitchen. I would have liked to have had a bigger spice cabinet but, I was going for the look and love the way it turned out! I had a very shallow cabinet over the refrigerator that I used for Christmas items because I couldn’t reach it. The deep cabinet over the refrigerator that we now have is in the top five improvements that we made. As you can tell from the pictures, I didn’t have much space to the right of stove to put baking sheets, platters, cookie racks, pizza pans, etc… They are now over the refrigerator.
The small cabinet to the right of the stove that had baking sheets in it, is now holding my cooking supplies. My husband did a bang up job on making that cabinet work how we wanted it to!
Another very huge improvement and in the top five, as well, is the way he made the drawers go all the way to the back of the cabinets! Who makes cabinets with drawers that just go two-thirds back anyway?! I was flabbergasted when I went to measure and discovered the drawers were wayyy smaller than they could have been. I was thinking that there must be a reason so I asked my husband and he said, “saved them money”? Wow! Really? How much more could it cost to do them all the way to the back? Ok, that’s all on that, but hopefully you get the point, use all the space!
Cabinets are now designed and off to handsome for the build!
Running out of room in the shop!
I knew I wanted gray cabinets and I knew I wanted shaker style fronts so while they were being built I took my sample door that I had found at a lumber yard to Sherwin Williams. They were able to match it up and Cloud paint is what I used for the cabinets. Once built, we had to find a good day to paint them. It was hard waiting, I’m not good at that but I have, now, gotten better at it. Here are some pictures of our painting, hanging, and assembling days as well as the backsplash options and sink fixtures we chose.
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One painting machine! 
One side at a time, let the hanging begin! 
Sherwin Williams Primer. 
Door painting day. 
You can see here where my previous cabinets ended after the four little drawers. 
All these drawers and cabinets are additions! 
Crown molding paint day. 
Very nice hinges! 
Picking out backsplash, this one was just too busy. 
This one is too white for the look I was after and too flat, I wanted some texture! 
This was my second choice but I didn’t really want all those grout lines. 
Ah, just right! Gave me the texture I wanted for sure! 
Kohler sink/Moen faucet
One last but definitely not least detail to the kitchen was added and I must share because while it seems pointless to many, and added for the look, it was totally worth it and is used so much. I had no idea how nice it would be. Is it necessary? No, but it is handy especially if you’re older and don’t handle heavy pots of water well. Also, a little safer to add water to hot pots and skillets than turning into traffic area with them to add the water. Just a few tidbits to think about but my goal was the look and I got that and so much more!
Danze Pot Filler that we put in for looks mainly, not knowing how much if any it would be used but just for the record, we use it all the time!
Ok so here are the beautiful “after” pictures to our amazing kitchen remodel journey…it was totally worth the wait and I love it so much! I can’t believe my husband was willing to do this for me but hind site, he might think twice. It was a lot of work and painstaking details, not to mention the time in research.
The original legs. 
Removing the finish. 
The table top sanded down. 
Removing legs. 
Remodeled the table to a walnut finish to better coordinate and changed the legs out for a more farm style feel.
New chairs. 
Love the slim knife block. 
I love that I can remove and clean the disposal seal.
