When my husband and I decided to do a complete remodel of our kitchen (actually almost every room in our whole house was touched), we never in our wildest dreams would have imagined doing it during a worldwide pandemic.  I know for a fact that had I known, I would not have dared to start it…..but hindsight is 20/20, and knowing what I know now, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.  I am loving my little oasis now, and staying home has been a bit more fun with all the new shiny things!

 

Before the project, I’d probably describe our kitchen/living space as a cave.  It felt dark despite the large windows.  Our kitchen had dark wood floors, black countertops, dark gray walls, and there were absolutely zero ceiling lights in the living area.  And of course I didn’t plan well.  I snapped these moments before the demolition started.  It looks a lot brighter than it actually was.

 

 

Because Matthew, my husband, works in construction, he wanted no part in having to do any of the work for our renovation.  So we elected to have a designer and general contractor to complete the project.  Eva Keegan and TLP Ventures completed the project for us, and they were amazing!  Eva designed the layout and functionality of the kitchen and took me to all the best places to pick out the elements to make sure it would be have a cohesive look.  We started the demolition on Monday, February 24th,   and by the end of the day, my kitchen was gone!

 

 

Not long after the project began, Covid-19 started interrupting our normal way of life.  And while most people were scouring the shelves for hand sanitizer, toilet paper and groceries preparing to quarantine in their homes, we were crossing our fingers that restaurants would still keep serving food!  We were doing a LOT of eating out at this point.  I was also really worried that we might have to put a hold on the project.  The world wasn’t allowing anyone into their homes, but I was desperately wanting them to come in and finish mine!  And luckily, they were able to keep working!  Work continued, but under much different circumstances.  I had planned on my children being in school all day while construction was going on, but now they were home, and I was having to keep them out of the way.  Thankfully they were little troopers and played outside and together in the playroom.

 

During this phase, we had recessed lighting installed in the living room and in the hallway upstairs.  The entire house started to get a new coat of paint, the neutral favorite, Agreeable Gray, and the new cabinets and island were installed.  Our old pantry next to the refrigerator was torn out, and cabinets were installed all around the refrigerator giving me WAY more room than my pantry ever did.  Thanks, Eva!  Next, we had the carpet removed in the living room and replaced with new hardwoods.

 

 

The hardest decision out of the entire reno was choosing a floor stain.  My perimeter cabinets are white, but my new island and beverage center are a brown maple stain.  I wanted something that complimented the cabinets, not matching or competing with them.  After standing over these samples for hours, I finally chose one and we went with it.  Unfortunately, I ended up not liking them.  They just weren’t what I was picturing in my head.  Everyone, our designer, our contractor, and the flooring crew, were so gracious with me as we experimented over and over and over again until we finally found something that I loved.  It ended up being such a custom blend that I had to swear on my life that I wouldn’t tell what it was because it was a teeny bit hard to create…..haha.  Imagine that, me being a little picky! 😛  We ended up being out of our house for almost 2 weeks (and living with our besties during quarantine at this point), but I absolutely love how they turned out.  Totally worth it!  I don’t regret it one bit…..although our friends that we were living with might 🙂

 

 

Everything else seemed to happen very quickly.  Next the countertops, hardware, and backsplash were installed.  It was finally starting to look like a kitchen again!  For the backsplash, I chose two separate tiles, one for the L shaped perimeter, and a different one for the beverage center to make it stand out just a bit.  The main backsplash is from Lowe’s, but I had it installed vertically and all the way to the ceiling.  I wanted it to give the kitchen the allusion of more height.  The backsplash for the beverage center is from Thurman’s Flooring in Spring Hill, TN.  I just love the pattern and colors of this tile.  For the hardware, I decided to go with a matte gold, and I’m super happy with this modern twist.

 

 

From this point on, it was finishing touches.  Final coats of paint, new carpet in the bedrooms, new lighting, and the new appliances (we kept some of the old) were installed.  And last, but certainly not least, my new living room furniture that I purchased in February (thank goodness for shopping before hand) from Nest Decor was delivered after almost 6 weeks of not having anywhere to sit in the downstairs of our home.  We managed to finish a remodel during a pandemic.  And stay happily married while doing it!  Like I said before, I wouldn’t have started if I had known what was going to happen, but boy am I glad I was blissfully unaware.  The project went well thanks to our excellent contractor, and now we have a beautiful new space to quarantine.

 

 

Here are links to all of the people and places that we used for this remodel.

Designer: Eva Keegan

Construction: TLP Ventures

Furniture: Nest Decor, Sara Sells, & of course, Target

Lighting: Graham’s Lighting & Wayfair

Appliances: Cenwood Appliances

Tile: Lowe’s & Thurmon’s Flooring

Countertops: 1 Surface LLC

 

I cannot tell you how tickled I am with the way everything turned out.  It has definitely given me the bug to redo our bathrooms and laundry room next!  It was such a fun project, and now it is such a peaceful place to spend our time, which apparently we have a lot of now.  We can’t wait to throw a party and invite everyone over to visit!  Hurry up, Covid-19.  We are done with this project and really done with you!