Our Kitchen: Reno Series Vol. 2

I'm excited to finally get this post up!

We bought our house last July, literally negotiating the contract while in the hospital after we had Ben. How's that for multi-tasking? We bought it knowing we wanted to renovate, and our first step was the kitchen.

Looking back at the before pictures, I wonder if our friends walked in the house and then nervously wondered what the hell we were thinking. Because it was bad y'all. Truth be told we fell in love with the back wall of windows and the beautiful view, and just figured the rest of it could slowly be updated to the house we love. And, it has!

Here are before pictures from the family room, with a view of that gorgeous yellow wall and the kitchen is just on the other side of it:

This wall blocked tons of natural light and broke up the space. We decided to knock it down to create the open floor plan we wanted. This is a load bearing wall however, so we did have to incorporate column structures in the design.

After:

In addition to the kitchen (and fireplace) demo and reno, you can see all trim was painted white, floors were stained and window coverings installed. It doesn't even look like the same space! (Thankfully).

There was another wall running vertical to the one we knocked down and it separated a small dining room. On the other side of the old dining room was a sitting room; which would equal 4 total sitting rooms in the house, way too many. I decided right away I wanted to extend the kitchen into the "old" dining room, and make that sitting room our "new" dining room. So, we knocked down that wall as well. Why not, right?

After:

Our awesome designer came up with the idea to create a little desk space and a comfy reading nook, I LOVE this space. Behind this wall is a walk in pantry.

Oh my gosh the kitchen looks so bad in this picture. You can see how unnecessary that wall to the right was! We didn't change much logistic-wise on the window side of the kitchen, just everything on it. 

This window is such a special place in the kitchen. And a lifetime dream came true with that farmhouse sink. Best decision I made. 

I hope you liked the tour! 

We are so happy with the room now, the kitchen is the central, most used space in a house - and seeing it come together has been wonderful. Though I'd rather forget the days we used the laundry room to wash dishes and a hot plate to cook meals. Short term pain, long term gain was my motto!

Oh, and if you are in Denver and looking to renovate and need help designing the space, I highly, highly recommend Elizabeth Lord. She rocked, was easy, and did amazing! 

You can check out my Kitchen Inspiration Board here. I'll be linking the kitchen specifics very soon!