Kitchen Mini-Remodel Phase 1

 Hello Everyone!

I am going to attempt a mini series on our mini remodel.  I am hoping I won't get so involved in the whole process that I forget to take pictures along the way.  I'm already a little behind because I forgot to take some before pics before I started making changes.  These were little changes but changes none the less.  I will try to do better.  First off, what do you do if you want to remodel your kitchen?  Well, you get rid of stuff. Here is the start of that.

Garage sale items.

I started working on cleaning out my cabinets and getting rid of the things I didn't use, need, or want.
Then, we started thinking about colors, new counter tops and whatever other changes we wanted to make.  My hubby's nephew is a cabinet builder so we were talking about adding a built-in hutch and coffee bar cabinet thingy to our dining room.  He is also going to repaint the existing cabinets and new counter tops.  After getting an estimate, we decided we couldn't do it all right now.  We decided to get the most bang for our buck. We are going to go with repainting cabinets and walls, and installing the counter tops.  The hutch thingy will have to wait.  But... then I had a brain storm.  Scary, I know but I sometimes get these ideas and it always makes my hubby shudder with dread.  Not really.  I already have a hutch in my dining room that is going to eventually be relocated to the living room.  I decided I could add my own temporary coffee bar off to the side of it until I could afford the built in.  I took a cabinet that I used at my niece's wedding and repainted it white. Then, I took an old metal filing cabinet that I had upstairs and painted it white.  It was the same depth as the other cabinet but not quite as tall.  So my enduring hubby added some little feet on the bottom.  Then, we got one of those glued wood panels from Lowe's and stained it a dark walnut color for a counter top.

Now, you are probably wondering why I used a file cabinet as part of this unit.  Well, I do have a built in desk in my dining room/kitchen.  We wanted to take it out because it kind of takes up space in the dining room area.  I don't really use it much except for the file cabinet drawers and as a clutter catcher.  That needed to go.  But, I did need a place for files, bills, etc. hence, the metal file cabinet.  I don't have a pic now but I have the coffee maker and other things on it and it is working out just fine. I still have dreams of the built-in.  We are also going to re-do our dining room table. We can't afford a new dining room set so we are going to take the one we have and paint the legs and put a new top on it. It will have the same walnut stain like the coffee bar. This maybe doesn't make a lot of sense without pictures of the whole room.  I'll try and get that up as we go along.  So this is just the beginning of Phase 1; getting rid of stuff and deciding what we want and can do. Stay tuned for more episodes. ;) So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane