DIY Kitchen Renovation

I've been a little hesitant about sharing our kitchen renovation here, because I wasn't sure if it would be inspiring or just reveal how crazy my husband and I are. :) We completely gutted the old kitchen in our 1950s rancher and DIYed everything except the countertop installation. The renovation took us roughly a year to complete. We have jobs and young kids, so renovating this house is something we do on the side as a hobby.

This was a total gut-job of both the kitchen and dining room, where the only surfaces that didn’t get replaced were some parts of the ceiling. The old cabinets were falling apart, the layout didn’t work for us, and the appliances were not going to survive the heavy use of a family of five much longer. Here are a couple of pics of the old kitchen:

We completely gutted the old kitchen down to the studs, removed the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and changed the cabinet and appliance layout. We added insulation, hung new drywall, installed new engineered wood flooring, installed all new cabinets, appliances, and fixtures, and put up new tile backsplashes. Here are a couple of pics of what it looked like during the renovation:



We spent just over $30K on this kitchen. By buying a fixer upper and doing nearly all of the work ourselves, we were able to spend a lot more on this kitchen and splurge on some higher end products than if we had bought a newer home or hired someone else to do the renovation for us.

We stuck with a very neutral and classic design, because we don't want to be doing this again any time soon. :) With this background, it's easy to add pops of color with accessories if we ever feel like it.

There are many more pictures in the link below if you'd like to see more. :)

Anni | Whose Idea Was It To Buy This House
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Elizabeth Dion Elizabeth Dion on Jan 30, 2017
    How did you prepare meals during your renovation? Ya'll did an outstanding job!
  • FMasMac FMasMac on Jan 30, 2017
    You did a fabulous job! Where did you get the bar sink? Can you provide approximate dimensions? Thanks!
  • Sos12988015 Sos12988015 on Mar 11, 2017
    Where did you get French door beverage fridge
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  • Carol Carol on Mar 07, 2017

    Your kitchen is to die for!!!! Fantastic job you guys. You should be proud of what you accomplished.

  • Jana Vaughan Jana Vaughan on May 21, 2020

    You and your husband did a fantastic job!!!! Give yourselves a pat on the back!!!!!

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