Renovations are exciting, invigorating, and exhausting all at the same time. There are so many decisions you have to make along the way and it is draining. At some point I usually hit a decision fatigue wall and start making impulse decisions. This definitely happened in our phase 1 kitchen renovation. We did this as an effort to give our existing kitchen a few extra years of life before it needs a full gut renovation, which would be “phase 2”. It’s been 3 years and I am happy to report our phase 1 kitchen is still going strong! It was an affordable way to make our dated 80s kitchen feel fresh again without paying the costs of a typical kitchen renovation and I am so happy we did it all.
As a reminder here is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in. 80s golden oak, bubbling laminate counters, too many cabinets in such a small area, the lovely light fixtures, and a microwave from 1980 – shockingly it still worked!
This was the second major project we tackled, ever. We were probably in a little over our heads, but hey, we learned a lot. We removed a lot of cabinets, painted the cabinets, DIYed concrete counters over our existing laminate counters, installed tile backsplash, added new cabinet hardware, installed new appliances, and painted the grout.
Overall we are really happy with our kitchen and it still works really well for us, for the most part. The cabinets are in rough shape (they were when we moved in – paint just hid it slightly) and the DIY concrete counters are starting to show some age (though we would 100% do it again) – so we are looking at needing phase 2 of our kitchen renovation in the next few years. When I say phase 2 – we are hoping to fully gut and reconfigure our kitchen! After 3 years of living with our current kitchen, there are a few things I would do differently if we were doing it all over again. I wanted to share my insights with you incase you are planning a kitchen renovation (either a budget friendly version like our phase 1 or a full blown kitchen remodel).
DARK LOWER CABINETS
I should have known this since I first apartment and our first home both had very dark wood cabinets, but dark cabinets show every spec of dust and dirt. This may be because our current kitchen gets a lot of direct natural light, but I still noticed it in our previous homes that did not have as bright of kitchens. Dark stained wood is slightly more forgiving than paint, but either way if you choose a dark cabinet color know that they show dust and dirt, much more so than white or lighter colors, in my opinion. I thoroughly wipe down our lower cabinets about once a week. Between food/drink spills, dog slobber, and dust and dirt goodness knows they need it. Our upper cabinets are white and I feel like they don’t show that they are dirty nearly as easily. In all fairness they are not subjected to as much in the terms of food/drink spill or dog slobber, but they sure get the same amount of dust and finger grime, but you cannot see it nearly as easily as you can on the lower cabinets. In the future I would go with either more mid-toned or white cabinets. It seems counter intuitive that white cabinets show less grime, but in my experience they do.
NOT INSTALLING A GAS RANGE
We really wish we had swallowed the extra cost and had a gas line run to our range so we could have a gas range. At the time, it seemed like such an expensive add when we were trying to keep our whole phase 1 renovation under $1,000 (not including appliances). I know we would not have regretted it if we had done it.
NO OPEN SHELVING
When we first removed the cabinets above our sink and range we debated adding open shelves to the corner between the sink and range. Ultimately, we decided against it because we loved the openness we now had. Now, I really wish we had added at least one shelf. I love how light and bright this corner is, but would love to have a shelf or two to display a few frequently used items on. I would really like to incorporate at least a small section of open shelving in phase 2 of our kitchen renovation. This is something we could still do in our current kitchen, but realistically it is low on the project priority list.
KEEPING THE 80s DESK
Whyyyyy? Why did we decide it was a good idea to keep the 80s desk? It is tiny. A regular chair does not fit underneath the desk so it currently houses our reusable grocery bags. It is also a major clutter magnet for us. What are you even supposed to put in those tiny cubies? Goodness knows we find things to fill them, as you can see, but they are usually never to be seen again until I go on an organizing mission and decide to never put things in those cubbies besides our keys, which never works out well.
We hemmed and hawed over this decision, but ultimately decided to keep the desk because the tile does not extend under the desk and we weren’t prepared to replace the flooring at that point. We did have a few extra kitchen tiles in the basement and could have pieced the flooring back together, but we chose not to because honestly it seemed too difficult at the time. Had we decided to rip the desk out I know we would have figured everything out and it would have been fine. We could have replaced it with shelving or a pantry cabinet and that would have been wonderful! Hindsight.
Though we do have a few things we would do differently, we ultimately are proud of what we did with our kitchen on a major budget – we spent less than $5,000 (including all new appliances) to drastically improve our kitchen. Don’t be afraid to make small or inexpensive changes while you are waiting or saving up for a bigger renovation – it is well worth it in my opinion!
