Before & After: Our DIY Kitchen Reveal

Eight months ago, Josh and I decided to jump right into our kitchen renovation – a renovation project that we dreamed about doing for years. We had a vision, that’s it, and decided to work our behinds off to turn that vision into an actual real live kitchen that we get to enjoy every day. We are so proud of ourselves and the work we put into building this space. We overcame so many obstacles, from countertop drama, uneven floors, and figuring out how to get the spacing juuuussst right for the inset cabinets we built ourselves. We worked together as a strong unit to create a special space for our family, in a home that means so much to us. There are so many DIY projects in here that I can’t wait to share in more detail (I’m looking at you tiled shelf), but for now I’d like to FINALLY finally introduce to you our newly renovated kitchen.

Before:

The countertop, appliances, floors…it all had to change. If you’ve missed it, we have more before photos available here, along with details about the changes we wanted to make and why.

Demolition and Rebuilding:

We demoed the kitchen down to the studs, and installed all-new drywall and cement board in preparation for tile flooring. If you’ve been following for awhile you know that water damage seems to be the narrative of our home. We were so happy to find that we didn’t have any water damage or structural issues at all when opening up the walls and floor!

After Photos:

Quite the change right? As you can see we kept the layout pretty consistent as before, but reconfigured the location of our fridge and oven. We opened up the narrow entryway for better flow, and to also allow more light to enter the space. One of the very first things we did during the demolition stage was have our electrician come in to rewire the kitchen and add recessed lights. Our ceilings are only 8 ft. high, but taking that ceiling fan away and bringing our upper cabinets to the ceiling helps it feel so much taller.

We chose a black undermount sink, and chrome bridge faucet (I love how timeless a chrome finish looks). As you can see I’m not afraid to mix metals and our kitchen has a mixture of black, brass, and chrome.

One of my personal favorite DIY projects in the kitchen is our backsplash and tiled shelf! I had a vision for this space and even though the majority voted against it, I trusted my gut and we went for it. I love how the light bounces off of our backsplash tile and makes our kitchen really shine. The ceramic gloss tile really helps to create light in a windowless space, and I didn’t want to interrupt the magic that was happening with this tile, by breaking it up with a wood shelf.

Before

After

When I came up with the idea to move the oven here with an island mount hood range, I was a little nervous that this design layout wouldn’t feel right. But once we installed the hood range, I knew it would all come together beautifully. Taking this area down to a half wall really opens up our kitchen to the rest of the home, without having it be completely open concept. Since our living room, dining room and kitchen are all in such close proximity I still wanted to have a wall present to keep some sort of separation. We also added a faux beam between the dining room and kitchen for added architectural interest.

Our PROUDEST DIY is by far our inset cabinets. We made these! Can you believe it? We. Built. These. Cabinets! Inset cabinets can be pretty tough, and I have a newfound respect for carpenters that specialize in inset cabinet making. It definitely is a skill and getting the spacing right had us pulling quite a few late-nighters. We worked really hard and put a lot of love and care into making these. I couldn’t be more proud!

Let’s play a game of find the dishwasher (hint: it’s right next to the fridge). Josh and I went with a panel-ready dishwasher and built our own panel to match our cabinets. I asked Josh what his favorite DIY project was and I was surprised to learn that this is his favorite. I think it’s because we went into it having no idea what we were doing. We just kind of went for it and didn’t know if it would even work. Thankfully, we successfully managed to build a really impressive panel that fits in seamlessly with the rest of our kitchen. I just love it all!

I already mentioned our FAVORITE and PROUDEST DIY projects, but our most REWARDING is the herringbone floor. We laid each tile by hand, one at a time, and yes, it took us forever! Was it worth it? Most definitely! I receive a lot of questions about our tile and if it’s hard to clean or if it feels rough to the touch. The answer to those questions is no. Our floor tile is actually a very smooth porcelain tile. The color variations were done so incredibly well and give the visual illusion of real brick. Pretty impressive right? I’m really happy with our tile choice and would choose this tile and pattern again and again (regardless of how much I complained about herringbone on Instagram lol)

And that concludes our kitchen reveal!

Josh and I would like to THANK YOU all for your continued support! We’ve gained such an amazingly supportive community of people that have been cheering us on from the very beginning. We’re extremely proud of our kitchen transformation and I truly hope that the work and progress we’ve made inspires you in some way.

I’ve compiled a list of sources below, but if I’ve missed anything or you have any questions let me know. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram @heytheretoots, where we have an entire series showing our kitchen renovation journey. I’m sure you all are also curious about the costs of our renovation, so I’m working on a budget breakdown post as we speak. I can’t wait to talk money with you next week. Thank you again for your support and being here!