BEFORE
Now it looks like this!
Originally the room had an opening from the living room into the kitchen directly in front of the entry door. So when you walked into the house you saw this.
Yuk.
With the assistance of the building Buddha, we closed this wall off and put in a stud wall in gyprock.
After getting four terrifyingly high quotes from kitchen companies, we ended up going for a semi diy approach with the rest of the job.
We pulled the old kitchen out ourselves, and put a board on the wall to cover up the old grout and wall at the back. Later on, this wall will be completely knocked out and open up into a hallway and staircase to the basement.
The kitchen cupboard units were bought from Harvey Norman Kitchen Point, not flat pack (thank god) but only half assembled. The drawer fronts and runners had to be screwed in and inserted into the units, a job which is time consuming and fiddly. I know this by observation only, as my husband tackled this task for the base cabinets.
The quote from Harvey Norman to install the cupboards was astronomical, and they wanted $200 on top per day for 'travel' from Sydney, so I looked for a local installer. Word of mouth led me to engage the services of a lovely cabinet maker who tackled the job for less than a third of the price that I was quoted from Harvey Norman.
He's not quite finished yet, the top cupboard fronts are still to be attached, and the benchtop and splashback are on order.
It's a full 3.6m of straight bench space, broken up only by the cooktop. I cannot beleive we've managed to put so much kitchen into such a tiny space, nor how much the white gloss cabinets reflect light and make the space look bigger than it really is.
Stupidly excited about Wednesday, when the benchtop is due to arrive. Until then though, we're eating solely from the kettle, an electric frypan, a toasted sandwich maker and a George Foreman grill.
And the next stage is the sink side. But for now I'm going to be over the moon with my brand new shiny half a kitchen.
If you want to see more of the reno pictures, I've created a flickr set over here.
8 comments:
Kitchen renovations are THE BEST! You never appreciate how good a good kit hen can be until you've renovated one yourself, I think!
You must have such a sense of achievement. It's all looking very elegant.
You must be delighted a great achievement. It looks fabulous
such a huge improvement already! i just know all the angst and stress and struggle is going to be worth it. you wont know yourself. a perfect choice for the space too.
WOW ! comes to mind :D ...looking sleek & gouuud!!
Wow, the new kitchen looks great. I love the long row of cabinets - so much storage space.
Wow! This is looking really good already, and will be truly fabulous when finished. I am very jealous of your bright and shiny white kitchen!
Oh, I am so jealous of all that bench space!
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