DIY kitchen remodel plans

Hi guys! Whew, it has been a few weeks since I checked in. I am sorry for the unplanned blogging break, but I have been verrrrry busy during this time. Today I am so excited to share my DIY kitchen remodel plans with you all!

Dale and I have been working on this remodel for a few weeks now and the kitchen is finally in a place of semi-function so I feel I can take a break and share what the whole plan of attack is for this big kitchen renovation! Really, this kitchen remodel has been in the works for years, and is the second time we have worked on the room.

The first time we redid the kitchen it was a little face lift about 7 years ago. We painted the cabinets, added the back splash, new cabinet hardware and eventually added hardwood floors throughout our living room and kitchen. The small foot print and layout of the kitchen stayed the same. There was always plans to do a larger scale renovation eventually, but with tiny kids and limited funds this was all we could squeek out.

It was nice and bright but the space is small. I have attempted little fixes, adding a kitchen cart I adore to utilize more of the eat-in area off of the kitchen. Getting creative has only gotten me so far, and none of that has allowed all 5 of us to be in the kitchen at the same time. When cooking in here two people at the most can fit in the space. We are constantly forcing the kids out of the kitchen, and I do eventually want the kids to be able to help out with cooking and clean up. I do not want to be making their lunch when they are teenagers because there is not enough space for three full grown kids in there.

When doing dishes standing at the sink and loading the dishwasher cannot happen at the same time because the dishwasher opens up into the place where you stand in front of the sink. It seems very counter productive. There is small issues that pop up and I had had enough! I finally convinced Dale that a big kitchen renovation could happen, and I even had plans to keep the cost low!

Here is the current kitchen layout. It is a small U shape with two entrances, one going into the living room and one leading into our small family room. There is also our dining room to the left of the door. A lot is happening in this little space. The room itself is a good size, just the layout of the cabinets has never seemed like the best use of space to me.

We had Nora’s birthday party in January and our house was filled to the brim with family and friends. No matter how cozy and comfy our living room and family room is everyone stands around the kitchen. I am sure you can guess how impossible this is to do. Even having people come into the kitchen to get their food is a tight squeeze and has to be done in shifts. Now, we are not like those people looking for houses on TV that only talking about having room for entertaining, but, BUT, we do need to have a place big enough to welcome the wonderful people in our life. I am not talking grand, massive or over the top; just enough to have people easily walk in and help themselves to food without tripping over someone else.

Here is the wall with out refrigerator, pantry and another cabinet. It all shares a wall with the family room. This is what closed off the kitchen and made it impossible to function.

The other really big problem area is the peninsula and breakfast bar. The breakfast bar is the place my kids sit and eat breakfast every day, and it also bumps right into the backdoor, literally it gets hit every time the door gets opened. The peninsula and sink being where they are makes the kitchen even smaller because opening the oven means the person cooking has to back up to where the sink is. That is it, there is not more room for standing.

Once I really started looking at the space, the cabinets we had, the walls and the overall layout; a plan started forming in my head. Dale was willing to jump on-board with all of this when I told him that most of our kitchen cabinets could be reused in the room, just moving them around. This lowered the overall cost of the project a lot. We also planned to reuse the 2x4s in the wall and drywall we already had from taking down a wall in the basement.

We also got extremely lucky and found our exact wood flooring that we purchased 7 years ago in stock in a store that was going out of business! So we were able to pick up 5 more boxes of the same flooring, meaning we had enough to feather in what was needed once we opened up the wall.

Dale had still been hesitant to jump in with the entire kitchen renovation, but once we found our flooring he took it as a sign!

Yes, you read that right! Part of my plan means widening the doorway! Dale and I like a good flow to the home, but full open concept is not something we like. I need some separation and designated rooms. So widening one doorway into a huge entryway is just what is needed to bring in a better layout for the kitchen cabinets.

It was all hands on deck for demo day! We confirmed that the wall was not load bearing and got to work demoing most of the wall! This is not a tutorial post, the kitchen is nowhere near ready for that, I am not mentally prepared to share the hows and whys for things yet. That will come with time. This is just me sharing the DIY kitchen remodel plans and showing off what has been keeping me so busy lately.

I can share that a window will be added above the newly placed sink (which is not in this picture but you can see the hole in the cabinet for it). The wall cabinets will be taken down to allow room for the window. I am also going to be adding a transom window above the entire kitchen entryway! I feel like this is my one chance to have a fancy and classy kitchen, I am doing it up with finishes.

The kids (and dogs) have been loving helping us out so far. Everything is so interesting to them, my two boys especially have been asking us thousands of questions while we are in here working. We are definitely setting them up to be DIYers as adults.

Here is the new layout! We will be putting in an island, creating a cabinet for the microwave to be in the island and off of the counter top, creating small upper cabinets to bring our current wall cabinets up to the ceiling, moving lighting around, adding two pendant lights above the island, new back splash, window above the sink, closing the doorway into the living room, and hundreds of other small little projects that have to happen to make the kitchen function and be pretty again.

The island will be a mixture of cabinets we already have and a custom one to put the microwave in. It will end up being bigger than what is shown in this picture, but we set this up to get a feel for the space and it has become our kids favorite place to eat, hang out and even do homework. The overall look of the kitchen will stay similar, just with updates and more of a polished look. I will be repainting the cabinets because of the upper cabinets being added, but am leaning towards keeping the color the same. I adore the very subtle mint color.

For reference, I am standing in the family room looking into the kitchen when I took this picture. There is no wall there anymore! We closed up the small doorway that lead into the living room. As you can see there is A LOT still to do! As of today the flooring is all put back in and the sink is working, but not the garbage disposal or the dishwasher… baby steps…

When I was planning out the best way to utilize the space this floor plan seemed like the best option, well without tearing down the exterior walls and pushing it out a few feet. We are not there and most likely never will be. With the new cabinet and appliance formation it all flows so much more now! It took a lot of drawing up of possibilities, considering problems we would run into and keeping in mind reusing as much of the old kitchen as we can. Finally we landed on what I hope to be a dream kitchen for us! Let me know what you think of the DIY kitchen remodel plans. Is there anything I should move around, reconsider or add to my plans? Get ready for a ton of tutorials, DIY projects, building tips, inspiration posts and so much more to start rolling out around here. I am also going to be sharing the bathroom redo soon, that little face lift and water damage repair turned out amazing! So much exciting content coming up!