Mini Makeover: The Kitchen

What does it mean when you go to blog about updating your kitchen and while searching through old photos for pictures of said kitchen (pre-update) you realize you may have liked it better the old way?  

Before:

I took these pictures when we first moved into to our little house.  

It seems bigger and brighter.  And the floor seems... shinier or something.   

Maybe it's just that we had less stuff.  

Before:

At any rate, one thing that did really bother me about the old kitchen was the old beige Formica counters and back splash.  They just didn't feel in sync with the rest of the room.

Before:

But, much to my delight, several months ago, our dishwasher broke which started a chain reaction resulting in an updated kitchen!  A previous owner had put the black and white ceramic tile flooring in and ended up raising the floor a good half inch, tiling in the base of the old dishwasher.  The only way to get the original dishwasher out, was to either tear up the floor or take off the counter tops.  

I voted for the counter tops.

We removed the old Formica, put in a new dishwasher, and had Home Depot install a new gray Formica counter top. 

And that's where things slowed down.  

For the next several months, this is how our kitchen looked:

I didn't get around to doing the back splash until this Spring Break.

After:

This was my first time tiling anything and I'm pretty proud of myself!  

I learned a lot.  

There are definitely things I would do differently next time, but overall, it was an easy, fun project!

Next on my big house sprucing to-do list is painting, painting, painting.  I have plans to do all the doors, trim, hallway, and ceilings.  If that goes well, I'll redo the kitchen (probably a lighter yellow and the cabinets) and the bathroom.

Anyone want to help? 

:)