An Open Kitchen
So, we were feeling a little ambitious this weekend.
Allow me to explain. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Corey and I wanted to knock down the upper cabinets separating our kitchen from our dining room. Well, this weekend we decided we’d had enough of those cabinets blocking our view and decided to do something about it.
We started by taking down the cabinets – there were some under-mounted lights that we thought were hard-wired to the house (there was a switch to turn them on), but once we got the false bottom out of the cabinets, we quickly realized it was a lot simpler than we thought.
Uh yeah, that’s an extension cord ran through the wall. An extension cord. Pretty sure that’s not up to code, but I could be wrong.
We disconnected the lights (after turning the power off to the kitchen, of course!) and down came the cabinets!
We tossed gently set them in the garage for use in a future project, and we inspected the walls a bit…
That would be not one, but two different wallpapers in our kitchen. And from the looks of it, they were both very…interesting. Hopefully they won’t come back to affect us too much once it’s time to re-texture the walls in the kitchen. There is a whole layer of plaster and texture on top of the wallpaper, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Once the cabinets were down, it was time for the fun part. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
With each section we got down, we became more and more excited for how much it was opening up the whole area. We couldn’t believe what a difference it was making.
Before I reveal the final (for now) look, let me remind you what it looked like before.
And…after.
It obviously needs some finishing work before it looks perfect, but we’re thrilled with the result so far. It makes the kitchen feel much more integrated with the rest of the house, and it makes us even more excited for our eventual plan of lowering that bar to counter-level for an even bigger opening between the two rooms.
The next step in this room is to re-texture the walls and add a ceiling treatment (more on that once we get to that point), but that will have to wait a few months. For now, we’re just going to bask in the glow of the extra light flooding our kitchen and our new and improved view of the rest of the house!
Anyone else do some random demolition work this weekend?
Woo hoo! So much better! My parents reno-ed their kitchen in their 100+ year-old home last year, I think they found 6 different wallpapers. They were all terrible!
Looks fantastic!! I can’t wait to see what it looks like all finished.
Wow looks great!! What are your plans with that one floating cabinet?? I would think an open shelf for nice plates and cups would look nice. At least from what I can tell through these photos. Not sure what the straight on shot might look like.
We haven’t made any concrete plans, but right now we’re thinking of doing exactly that! The one random cabinet looks a bit awkward, so we’re thinking we’ll probably ditch it in favor of some open shelving!
That blue heart/flower wallpaper must have been very popular at one point because that same wallpaper was in the house I lived in when I was 11-13, and it is in my fiance’s parent’s house currently.
WOW! What a difference that made! And even moreso once the counter is lowered. I didn’t do any demo this weekend, but I did build a few picture frames. Your kitchen is starting to make some good progress!
I’m blown away by the difference this made!!!!!! And that wallpaper you discovered….wow. You guys are so brave! I would have been biting my nails as that came down. You guys are moving so fast on making the changes you wanted to the new house! I’m so excited for you!
What a change! Anything that would involve tearing into drywall would make me so nervous, but looks like it’s turning out well for you!
What a difference! I like that you’re going to level the counter off too – that will really open up the space. You have SUCH a great eye for these improvements and much more motivation that I ever would to actually get them done! I rarely comment, but I really enjoy reading about your home renovations and DIY decor.
Wow, that looks so good! You guys are seriously so inspirational. I feel like when we get a house eventually, I’ll feel so much more confident about remodeling it ourselves, thanks to following your blog!
So amazing! What a really fun project too! I’m sure that Corey loved tearing everything down. And now it is so much more open!
Serious improvement! Great work.
Wow – that is an amazing before & after! Great job – and yes, that’s mighty ambitious for a weekend project! 🙂
What a great change! Love it!
The difference is amazing. And I bet the whole process was kind of fun, too. It looks fun!
It opens up the space so much!
It looks great! Man you guys were productive this weekend, the most productive thing I did was vacuum!
Oh wow!! It looks so much more open!! I can’t wait to see as you make more changes to the kitchen (kitchens always seem to be my favorite renovations to see).
I can’t believe how big of a difference it makes! It looks so great! It makes me ridiculously excited to see how everything will look when you’re finished with it!