Kitchen Renovation - It's a wrap!

With the walls and cabinets in our newly acquired home finally painted, it was time to turn our attention to the rest of the kitchen remodel. Before having the new countertops installed, I wanted to replace the two windows over the sink. The original single-pane windows faced west, and since we plan to live here year-round, upgrading to double-pane windows made sense. They would be much more energy efficient thus keeping the kitchen more comfortable during the hot Arizona summers.

Replacing the windows turned out to be a fairly easy project. They were secured with screws from the outside, so I simply removed the screws, scored the old caulk with a utility knife, and carefully worked each window out of the opening.

The hardest part of the job was removing all of the old caulk. Once that was finished, I set the new windows in place, made sure they were level both horizontally and vertically, and fastened them with screws. A generous bead of exterior caulk around the perimeter sealed everything to prevent any future leaks.

With the windows finished, it was time for the countertops. We found a local fabricator who offered a solid-surface product similar to Corian. After he came out to measure everything, a few weeks passed before he returned to install the new countertops along with our  larger single-basin undermount sink.

Once the installers finished, all I had left to do was reconnect the plumbing under the sink. Then it was on to the next project—the backsplash.

We decided on a simple white subway tile. During a trip to Lowe's, we got lucky and found the tile on clearance for just seven cents a piece. In fact, the tile, mortar, and grout together cost about the same as the tile saw I had to buy to complete the installation.

The kitchen has now become exactly what we envisioned. Someday we'll probably replace the refrigerator, but for now we're very happy with it. We also found a few finishing touches on Facebook Marketplace which helped pull everything together without spending a fortune.

Looking back, this was one of those projects that made a dramatic difference in the look and feel of our park model. Best of all, we were able to accomplish it without breaking the bank.

Kitchen Renovation: Out With the Old, In With the NEW!

After the walls were prepped in the dining room and kitchen, we also tackled the hallway. Every single little wooden stay was pulled out. Each and every crack was filled with sheetrock mud and sanded flat with the wall.

Once all the walls were prepped for painting, our focus went right to the kitchen. This is where we wanted to make the biggest changes. Our first change was to move the end island cabinet  and shorten the cabinet to the  otherside of the stove. This kitchen originally had a small 30-inch wide stove, so we wanted to replace it with a standard, full-size unit. Thus, we needed to move these cabinets to account for the 6-inch difference in size.

We also planned to replace the microwave so I started to remove it and encountered a real challenge! This old microwave was mounted unlike any microwave I have ever seen before. It took me several hours of wrestling with it to finally get it off the wall.

Once the old microwave and the old stove were out,  we went shopping for new ones. After looking around Lowe's, we found nice replacements for the old units. Before the stove could be installed I would have to put down new florring under the moved cabinets. Fortunatley the previous owners left just enough old flooring to make the necessary repairs.

Once the flooring was in I installed the new microwave which was a snap compared to taking out the old one. I will put in the stove later after we paing the cabinets.  Since we already had the walls prepped for paint we are ready to prep the cabinets.

So next we focused on painting the cabinets. After using ChatGPT to help us experiment and pick paint colors, we finally settled on a variation of sage green called clary sage. It took us about 10 days to paint all the cabinet doors because we had to first degrease them using TSP and then we sanded them. Next, becasue these cabinets aren't real wood they are partical board covered with wood film, we used two coats of shellac based primer since it was rated as the best to stick to them.  Lastly we put on two coats of paint on each side of the doors.

While the cabinets were curing we painted the trim white and the walls with using a color called agreeable grey. With everything is painted I installed our new stove after rebuilding the shortened cabinet. Next the focus will be on the windows, sink, countertops and backsplash.