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Kitchen Addition - Huge Transformation

Heidi Der
4 years ago

Our house was built in 1946 as a small lake cottage. It is a ranch with a walkout basement and previously had a detached garage. The kitchen consisted of a sink, a stove, a dishwasher, a fridge, some open metal shelves and open wooden shelves used as pantry space, two upper cabinets and two lower cabinets. The floor was peel & stick vinyl squares, the backsplash was painted plastic tile, and the countertops appeared to be linoleum, with a weird metal and rubber raised edge that seemed perfectly designed to catch all crumbs and spills.


This addition/remodel was a HUGE undertaking. There were many projects that we had delayed doing because we were waiting for the “big remodel.” In fact, we would say things like “there’s no point in getting new flooring in the living room – we’ll wait for the new house.” And “We’ll wait to see how the remodel goes before we buy a new dining room table.” So, not only did we add on a new kitchen, pantry, entryway and attached garage, we remodeled the living room, moved the laundry room upstairs, completely refaced the front of the house, sided the entire house, and poured a new driveway. It definitely would have been easier to just find a new house, but we love our neighborhood and small lake, so we decided to just make the house suit our needs. We plan to stay here forever now.

Exterior before and after – I really hate those utility poles, but I’m not sure what can be done about them.



Kitchen before (this picture contains all the cabinetry and counterspace I had before the addition!)



The next picture was my makeshift pantry space – it was next to the fridge and out in the open – everyone had to walk past this space to get to our living area!



The area that used to be the kitchen is now the dining area, and the new kitchen is an addition that lays between the old house and the new attached garage.


Kitchen after:





The baking center:





The pantry:






There are actually a couple more cabinets to come – a “drop zone” to the right of the wall ovens (facing the entry from the garage), an open shelving unit above the fridge, and a set of bookcases (for cookbooks) to the left of the fridge, facing into the dining area. The cabinets are custom and taking forever, though, so I couldn’t wait to post this update even though everything isn’t quite done.

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