Farm House Kitchen - Before and After

I'm going to do a series of posts featuring some of our farm house renovations. If you're new to my blog, we bought an older house on a little farm and had it completely renovated. The process took 3 months. Thankfully, we didn't move in until a few weeks before it was completely finished. First up is my new kitchen!

The kitchen in our new house is one of my favorite rooms! This is my dream kitchen and has everything I have always wanted. When I first saw our house, I saw so much potential. You can change almost any room in a house and create a space you love. When we bought our house, the kitchen had a peninsula and short cabinets hanging from the ceiling. I knew instantly that if we tore that out, moved a door over, we could create a large island. I always wanted double ovens, a pot filler, and an appliance garage. When I met with our contractor's carpenter, I walked with him along each space and I described exactly what I wanted, including pot drawers. You can never have too many drawers! I also wanted the cabinets to reach the ceiling. We also wanted white shaker cabinets, dark gray quartz counter tops in the kitchen and bathrooms. I think the kitchen turned out great! You'll notice the old kitchen was narrow. The old water heater took up some of the space behind the old cabinets and wall. We bought a tankless and put it in the attic. Then we pushed back the walls and it really opened the kitchen. We had them install can lights throughout all of the living areas except for the pendant light above the sink and the chandelier I found on a really cool website. What do you think of our new kitchen?

BEFORE:

Small but functional kitchen

We moved the door in this picture over to the left.

There was a lot of wasted space.

AFTER:

Maximizing all of the space! All of the appliances we bought new.
I decided to go with a french door fridge and will say I love this one.
It's a Samsung, has a lot of space, can fit party trays, and is setup nicely for organization.

Lots of storage, double ovens, gas stove, and pot filler.

We have a 12' island. I'm planning to get bar stools, eventually.

There used to be a wall where you see the table in the background.
We added a room, I'll explain this in another post.

5 burner gas stove top

Closeup of the island.

Notice the wider walkway 

Appliance garage

Farm House Renovations Update

Life has been keeping our family very busy. We're looking forward to everything being done at the farm, moving, and not having anything big planned for a while. 

Progress is being made on the farm house. Sadly, we had a few setbacks this past week. One being the power company had to disconnect the power to our property when we informed them of the poor wiring, which apparently is extremely dangerous. Thankfully, that has all been fixed, even though it cost us 3 days of work. The other setback was our plumber decided to work off the job. So the plumbing, which should have been completed, has been delayed by another week and will hopefully be done this coming week. We did find another plumber, the original plumber we hired, but our general contractor told us in the beginning that he wanted to use his guy. 

Floors were supposed to go in next week. Most likely they will not. Below are a few pictures of the open floors. The biggest plumbing issue we have is a leak from the kitchen sink out. They have to cut a new water pipe out and under the house to the septic. Or they need to find and fix the leak. 

On the positive, the back room addition has been almost completed. All but two new windows have been installed. The electrical wiring has been done. The cabinet maker is working on the cabinets. Once we resolve the plumbing problem and they fill in the floor, they can hopefully lay the floor, install the rest of the drywall, texture and paint, install cabinets, and finish up the job.

Before: We removed the wall to add a sun room/breakfast room

After: Sun room/Breakfast room addition

We also put our house on the market two weeks ago and got an offer the next day. We are past their option period and are just waiting on the appraisal to schedule an appointment. We are scheduled to close in less than a month on our current home. God has really blessed us with a quick sale. Selling a house has been one of the most stressful things I've done. I am NOT a natural homemaker/house keeper. I like things being clean and orderly but I have to work so hard to keep it that way.  

This week on the farm, we're having the llamas shaved. Hopefully the plumbing will get fixed, drywall will be completed, and the last windows installed. Meanwhile, we'll continue packing up our house up for the move. The original farm house completion date was in 3 weeks! Not sure if we're going to make that. We can hope and pray, though!

Farm House Renovations Week 1!

On Monday, our demo day at the farm house began! Well, inside anyway. Last week they did the foundation repairs. Today, we found out there is a leak under the foundation somewhere. To fix it, it will cost $250 for the first hour, $150 each addition hour to find the leak, then $1500 to fix each leak they find! OUCH! Lets hope it's just one leak. I'm so glad they are going to get it fixed, just wish it didn't cost so much. I'm also really thankful we don't have to live there while they are doing this work. There is so much work being done that it would be hard to live there and they would take a lot longer. We're having the ENTIRE house remodeled! The guys working on the house are doing a great job, so far.  

Once the house is done, I think it's going to look really, really great! Honestly, it really wasn't that bad to begin with. It's just over 40 years old and since we want everything to be up to code, and certain things weren't working, we thought the best thing to do was gut it and start anew. We're having the plumbing redone in most of the house, electrical wiring done, adding square footage, and completely changing the layout of the master bathroom and closet area. We're gutting bathrooms, kitchen, adding a half bath, and adding a new laundry room/mudroom area. We're also enclosing the screened in patio and making it part of the house. I'm looking forward to putting a big table in that area and enjoying lots of meals with my family and friends.

I've made a few YouTube videos that I'm sharing with friends who ask. It's unlisted so you'll need the link. Let me know if you want to see the house tour. 

Here are some before and after pictures of some of the renovations! We are only on Day 3!

Kitchen before. We're expanding it and going to have a big island.

This half wall in in the kitchen still needs to be removed.

Master Bathroom before

The wall is gone! Now time to remove the tub!

These shelves were located in the space above. We're relocating them.

Before

They are removing this wall to expand the living area.

2nd Bathroom

Sink and vanity are gone

Another angle of the 2nd bathroom