I am excited to report that our kitchen is in tatters. On purpose, of course. :)

We're doing a refacing, rather than a gut remodel. The layout is fine and we're sensitive to the idea of throwing away perfectly good cabinet boxes. We're trying to keep the budget around $7K, we'll see!

I'm not patient enough to hold off on posting until it's time for a glamorous reveal (plus, what if it never looks glamorous?) so instead I'll share some in-progress pics.

The original kitchen, strictly builder-basic, not that there's anything wrong with that. But we're slowly working our way through the house and making it contemporary, which has been a terrifically fun process!

Install of the Wild Sea bar top. We used a remnant piece of stone because I can't live with the idea of cutting up a whole slab just for my pleasure. But the remnant pile offers tons of possibilities and is really fun to search through. The installers were attentive to details and they fussed over the seams for a good long time. They didn't even mind me giving them a geology lesson on the origins of Wild Sea in the meantime.

Wild Sea got its name from the wavy pattern, properly called cross-bedding. The rock is sandstone that is mostly quartz but also has pretty garnets in it.

I am in love with our own little piece of geology, right in the kitchen. :)

I know you'll appreciate this photo, where DH demonstrates a GW technique to determine size, spacing, elevation, and quantity of pendants. We weren't even sure if we wanted pendants until we tried this. Gosh, even just the balloons looked great! So that's a yes for pendants. Two of them, from Denmark.

Next up: countertops. We chose a modern laminate in a silvery color with a subtle, linear texture. The edge of the countertop is a neat slice of Baltic birch, which adds to the linear effect. Don't mind the blue tape!
Oh, the countertops were all raised 2 inches. We are tall folks and DH has back issues. We love to cook and this will make our kitchen hours more comfortable. We love the new height.

Of all the things I could not wait to replace in the old kitchen, the sink was at the top of the list. The annoying, double-basin sink with neither side large enough to be useful; scratched-up, dirty-looking, bleh! You get the idea. Now we have a sleek Kohler Vault. Just look at it! Beautiful! So square and modern and shiny. I could go on.

Hey, have I mentioned how cool this sink is? It warrants another view.
We purposefully selected a shallow sink, which in effect raises the floor of the sink. This allows us (especially DH) to be much more upright while doing dishes.
Also note Wild Sea windowsill.
The faucet was pre-existing, which we bought a few years ago in a desperate play to make the kitchen more modern.

New cabinet doors will be Baltic birch, slab front, and will go to the ceiling. In this photo the builders were just test-fitting them and seeing how it would all lay out.

More of the same. The challenge for the builder is to cover every possible inch of the old oak frames, so there has been a lot of strategizing in the corners. I think it will work out well. DH is happy, builder is happy (mostly), and I'm happy. Who knew that was possible?

Inga gets a test drive on the Wild Sea. Don't make a habit of this, Inga!

That's where we're at for now. It's been a fun week. Next week we get the cabinet doors for real, and then new pullouts for the pantry and pots-n-pans, plus new super Susans in the corner cabinet. The following week will be backsplash and lighting.

The only decisions left to make are cabinet pulls and soap dispenser. Ideas welcome!

Btw, thanks for the tip on how to check potential pendant placing and look. I'd never have thought of that simple technique.

EAM, yes, I married well. :) DH is certainly the best feature of the kitchen.

I had been thinking about putting panels around the fridge. The side panel is easy but then what do you do at the top? Do the upper cabinets above the fridge need to be pulled all the way forward so they are flush with the front of the fridge? Or other solutions? I agree that would be a nice way to go.

Can't wait to see your finished kitchen. It is going to look glamorous!

I love the in progress. It sounds like it's going so well it's fun instead of the poor nightmares we usually hear.

I happen to think Inga is a perfect accessory to the countertop. After all. Cats are works of art. Sometimes they're just a piece of work, but...

Very fun. I am also impressed with your care about not wasting. I'm of the same vein. and Inga. I've got my own Ingas.

More as you go, please!

Your Wild Sea is gorgeous. Your husband doesn't hurt the view either. ;) Sorry hopefully we can contain ourselves and keep the catcalls to a minimum.

My parents have an early 1960s ranch with Birch cabinets. They are lovely and work with so many styles.

We used these pulls, I was,inspired by theanimala's pulls installed horizontally.

Badger, your pendant mock-ups do look like toilet paper - too funny! But very handy in a pinch, right? What a beautiful, shapely kitchen that is.

IowaCommute - yes, the Kohler Vault lip is tiny. Amazingly small, like the thickness of a credit card. Stuff wipes up easily, so much better than the silly, bloated lips on most drop in sinks. That was a big selling point with us.

Thanks for the suggestions on pulls. The Jamison is similar to what we had before and we could just reuse them, or perhaps longer ones in the same style. I like the way long, linear ones look, as Badgergal has.

Inga certainly brings glamor to the kitchen, as she does everywhere she goes. As we know, cats and kitchens are a natural combination.

As for sweet DH, he is blushing over here! But he's got a fantastic design sense, particularly when it comes to the spacing of things. So he's involved every step of the way. One of the best things about our projects is how we make design decisions together. We used to have different tastes which always made the process tense. But now we have both converged toward the contemporary style and we almost always agree right away. So lucky!

I will post more pics when we have the cabinet doors installed. Should be the end of the week. And the builder is getting us Blum soft close hinges, goody!

I'm with Eam44 and everyone else: more pictures of the kitchen and DH too!

We had a couple of quiet days while the builders put the finish on the cabinet doors. By midweek the doors were ready and the kitchen underwent a huge transformation.

Wow! So sleek and modern! What an amazing difference from the old orangey-oak tones.
The builder did an impressive job at covering up the old frames and making the gaps between doors extra tight.

I have wished for pullouts here for several years. The builder made these so the fit is perfect. Here, Pearl the Manx cat tests the payload capabilities. She weighs at least as much as a cast iron roasting pan!

Today was move-in day which was so much fun! I had a great time deciding what goes where. This view makes me really happy!

The previous setup had the World's Lamest lazy Susan. It was flimsy plastic and was only useful for holding lightweight items like rice noodles, taco shells and drinking straws. Lazy indeed. These are Hafele Super Susans which are beautiful. The builder did not have fun squeezing in the upper shelf and Susan, but he pulled it off.

One of the downsides of keeping the old cabinets is that some of the interior shelves are looking a bit worn. This is especially true under the sink where moisture has damaged the wood. A clever solution was to use some of the extra laminate from the countertops and make a shelf liner. The bonus is that it is waterproof and will be easy to keep clean.

Here is this evening's alpenglow out the kitchen window. Last summer we replaced this window which is what made us step on the slippery slope of redoing the kitchen. Replacing the window meant damaging the backsplash tile, and any of the replacement tiles we liked were too modern for ol' Oakey kitchen, so... we put the whole thing on hold while we took a deep breath and worked on a plan for a remodel.

So that's this week's installment of KRIP! We are still having a great time with all of this and are pleased with how everything is turning out.

Next up is backsplash and lighting, and perhaps cabinet pulls should we ever be able to decide. Thank goodness for the Blue Tape^TM method for now.

The backsplash tile is going to be the highlight in here, but the first batch was defective. The whole project was delayed 2 months while we waited for replacements, and now the next batch will arrive on Tuesday. I fear that it may have similar defects, which will be hugely disappointing. So we are holding our breath!

It's looking really good! The birch doors look fabulous.

Beautiful kitties!

We have Wild Sea for our bar tops. I saw it at one yard and called my DH to report excitedly that I found the stone! When he went over and we were walking over to the deep end of yard to see it, I asked him to guess the cool name of the stone. He took one guess and it was off only by one letter!

Anyway - how cool that you have the same stone. It does not appear to be too common. Have you posted pics of yours? I'd be keen to see it.

;)

Love how your kitchen has turned out. It is hard to imagine that this sleek space was once builders grade oak similar to what so many of us tore out. Can't wait to see what it all looks like when it is completed. The views aint bad either.

Leeber, it's a deal! Bring your favorite sponge.

We are so fortunate for the views around here. Certainly that is one of the best assets of the house. The original kitchen window had a big, stupid divider right down the center that blocked the view terribly. It was ironic because both the window and the sink below it had dividers that made them so much less than ideal.

But the actual reason we changed out the window is because we added a bunch of nearby windows in the garage, and when viewed from the exterior the one old window looked cheesy next to three new windows. That is the rule of remodeling, isn't it? Wherever you stop, the adjacent stuff looks terrible all of a sudden. Thus the slippery slope...

Here is a midsummer, mid-construction view that is kind of interesting.

Post more whole kitchen pics. I want to see the sink area with the other new cabinets behind! So exciting for you!!!

Those mountains look familiar. My daughter goes to school in Missoula. Her old bf has a 'place' near Kalispell/Whitefish and we are MT lovin' midwesterners here.

Enjoy. Thanks for posting now. Keep us in the loop.

This week's excitement was backsplash. There was some drama with the tiles, which I am really not happy about, but I won't let that derail my overall jubilance for the way everything is coming together.

Behold....

From Kitchen

From Kitchen

From Kitchen

From Kitchen

From Kitchen

From Kitchen

From Kitchen

Stay tuned for week 4 (and final for the time being): we get grout, pendants and LED undercab lights. Oh and we even get new switchplates! (yeah, another thing that I totally micromanaged. I got the builder and the electrician to simultaneously shake their heads at me.)

After next week we will pause to figure out a plan for new flooring. The old flooring is driving the builder crazy! We will also paint and do curtains.

Pumpkin bread is all done and smells so tasty. And now turkey stock is simmering away satisfyingly. So life is good in the kitchen world. Thanks for reading!

I see you considered warmer colors that would emphasize the background color of your amazing granite over the counter grey - did you not like the way these looked? What do you think of something a tad darker than those beiges, like eco-friendly Starglass Urethane grout in Amber below?

Remodel, oooh, that's a compliment! I saw her kitchen way back when we first starting picking out the different elements of our kitchen and I was psyched to see a completed picture of the same vision we had. Of course hers is several notches more deluxe than ours, but at least the style is similar. Now I will go look at what color grout she has!

PS The first kitchen I thought of when I saw your cabs was love2cook4six's. It's in the FKB. She has some really unique hardware, too.

Also very jealous of your view. Maybe I should print it, have it blown up, and paste it over my kitchen window.

I will get some new pics up asap. We now have grout, cabinet pulls, undercab LEDs, switchplates, a soap dispenser and pendants. We do not have paint and flooring as we are still stuck on both. But I bet if I post pics you all will have suggestions.

Your questions:
MT Wren - yes we are outside of Bozeman, good guess! The stone is from Montana Tile and Stone. They have a huge selection. A delightful place to look at slabs and they have tons of remnant pieces too. The formica is from Simkins Hallin. But the countertop itself was built by our contractor. He does an awesome job so I'd be happy to provide his name if you like.

NoSoccerMom - correct, we did not replace the cabinet boxes so it was a bit of a challenge to make that work out. I will post a photo tomorrow but what they did was build a frame around the top part of the cabinet so it pretty much looks like a continuation of the same cabinet. But, there is no "lid" on the cabinet so you see the ceiling at the very top. It's so far above my head that I don't notice anything, it just looks normal to me.

Flowers - wow, lovetocook's kitchen is amazing! All that interesting wood detail and funky hardware. That is some impressive craftsmanship.

Thanks for the encouragement. Stay tuned for more pictures soon, I promise!

Karin

Here are photos of how the extended cabinets look:

On this photo you can see how the old cabinet box was wrapped in new wood. Along the left edge you can see the birch overlying the old box. Since we really like the look of the laminations, it makes a cool effect at the edge of the wood.

Here are a couple shots of the kitchen with recent improvements:

From Kitchen

From Kitchen

From Kitchen

Next, I have some questions. Got paint suggestions?

From Kitchen

From Kitchen

Here is another angle showing all the various walls. Like most kitchens, there is not much wall space. It's more fragments of wall areas.

Thanks for ideas and advice you care to offer! I am off to gather paint chips this afternoon. I love paint chips. :)

Thanks for checking in - ideas are welcome!

If you go to a BM store - sometimes they have the bigger paint chips to purchase -but still get a sample paint as it does look different on a wall.

Look what is hiding behind my ovens - I wonder what the new owners will think when they buy our house in about 20 years and decide to renovate...

Or what the neigbors thought of our garage door palette for our house - our old garage doors - I had fun with the neighbors and they got to vote. I ended up mixing 2 colors together and using a custom color.

Have fun!

I'd be tempted to go with something dark to ground the half-wall looking into the kitchen. Perhaps a charcoal gray?

Writersblock - yes, that's the 25" Vault, which also comes in a shallow depth (7" rather than 9.5") to alleviate back pain for DH. It's working out beautifully and is one of our favorite features of the new kitchen. My Mom just bought the same one for her new kitchen too.

Localeater - the tile is AKDO, frosted in a color called Seashell. I also love the frosted look and it seems that options are more limited in frosted vs shiny. Sadly, I would not recommend them to anyone else. Their quality control is terrible and our first batch was all mottled and defective. So we waited 9 weeks for a new lot and many of those were also mottled. In the end it worked out and we love the look but if you can avoid this particular brand I would do so!

A2Gemini - I love the patchwork quilt garage door! Looks like modern art and it might have been tempting to leave it like that. I like the little paint sample time capsule behind the ovens - what a fun little thing to leave behind to make the next occupants scratch their heads.

Steph - those are great ideas, thanks! I hadn't thought of a darker grey for the half wall. We could use the same BM Pewter that is in the living room - that could easily work. And certainly we need a little green paint in there somewhere!

I think I need to take some new pics and do a little photoshop action. Personally, I want a plum color behind the sink to add some punch and pick up the garnets in the Wild Sea stone. DH isn't into that idea but maybe some photoshop might be more convincing?