Kitchen Reno!

Just as we were embarking on our bathroom renovation last November, we discovered that we had a leak in one of our pipes under the slab foundation of our house (discovered by way of a running-water sound in the walls & higher water bills). Our plumber, with some additional sonar detection equipment, narrowed the leak location down to the pipe that takes cold water to the kitchen sink. Since the pipe was completely inaccessible under the house, he recommended capping that one off & running a new cold water pipe from our laundry room, behind the walls of the pantry, cabinets & stove, to the sink.  Because this repair was going to require moving all the cabinets away from the wall & thus removing the granite countertop, we decided to go all in & do a small kitchen upgrade too :).

This is what the kitchen looked like before. The dark granite was here when we moved in & it was fine, although maybe wouldn't have been my top choice. The cabinets were original to the house (1985) and painted white.

View from the breakfast area (which we use as a sunroom because there are several windows & skylights).

The night before the tear-out.

A couple pictures of the progress. It was a lot more work than even the plumber anticipated to run new water lines through those walls. He ended up running a hot & cold line and left the hot one not hooked up, so that if we ever get a leak in the hot pipe under the house, we won't have to rip out cabinets & countertops again!

It was a disaster zone for several days...

And now!  We got new upper cabinets (42" tall instead of the previous 29" ones we had), and added a cabinet there on the left-hand side on top. That one allows me to keep a lot of small appliances in the kitchen that had previously been stored in odd places in the garage (not very handy). The lower cabinets we had painted & got new doors to match the uppers. The granite is 3" longer than before to give me just a little bit more counter space (all we could do with the room's spacing & not adding support legs).

The sunroom area

View from the sunroom - new barstools because the two we had before were so wobbly & falling apart. We went with a medium gray on the cabinets & a very light gray on the walls to keep the space clean & neutral. The cabinets are a shaker style, and I really love the pulls we ended up choosing. They're nice & chunky but curved & smooth, and they mimic the shape of the refrigerator door handles & oven/microwave handles.

Our pretty granite! Wade talked me into going with this somewhat bold "statement" slab, with some unique black & gray veining, a little bit of green & some gold flecks. It's pretty sparkly in person in the light because there is some quartzite in it as well. And an undermount sink that I have wanted forever!

And last but not least, we got new French doors to the deck as well! The old door was terribly sealed, so cold air would just blow in around the frame in the winter. 

Disregard the mess on the deck, which is the next project we're undertaking... a play/swingset for the backyard :).

I love how much brighter the kitchen is, the extra cabinet space, and sweeping crumbs directly into the sink instead of over the lip of the sink - haha. It was an expensive fall/winter for the Tapp house, but I love the finished products and they do say kitchens & master bathrooms are the rooms where you get the most bang for your buck on resale. Hopefully we're not selling this place anytime soon though, because I want to stay & enjoy it for a long time!