ABM Studio: The Kitchen (Progress!)

PROGRESS!!!!

Words cannot describe how happy we all are to be past the "before" phase and officially ready to share some "progress" updates. It's been about two and a half months since we closed on this house, and it's been a ton of fun to get from point A to point B with our awesome team of contractors (from Martin Remodeling).

We planned, we re-planned, we picked out paint then we picked out more paint. That more or less describes our day-to-day lives for the past few months. Totally TOTALLY not sick of house stuff though! The process, although lots of work and definitely challenging, has been a complete dream project.

(( Remember me? ))

This is how the kitchen looked on the day we closed. It was dark and felt very small. The floors were aged linoleum and the cabinets were homemade (of plywood). One of the things we really did not like is that the only place for the refrigerator (not pictured here because the house didn't come with a fridge) was next to the stove, blocking a huge window.

And here's how it looked a couple days after we closed. Goodbye upper cabinets! We had a vision, but it was lookin' pretty scary for a bit.

Here are a few of our favorite updates. This window is now twice as big! We removed the upper cabinets and opted for some open shelving.

LOVE those shelves. We decided to try subway tile all the way up to the ceiling this time and I love the look.

We decided to keep the (homemade plywood) cabinets along the bottoms and just give them a fresh coat of paint. I'm pretty happy with this choice. They look completely new to me now. We decided to go with a wood floor. I know it's a very controversial choice whether to do tile or wood. This is actually an engineered hardwood, and we've heard it stands up to water pretty well (not, like, a flood, but you know what I mean). Oh yes- and we added a dishwasher! That is pretty essential with all of the food blogging we do.

We moved the fridge to the back of the room where it can have a little more space. We added a few more shelves back here too. There is room for a cart below the shelves.

You may notice that we borrowed a few favorites from my home kitchen. We decided to get the same stove and hood and the same fridge in a new color!

Last, but not least. We solved our awkward door problem on the half bathroom. The door that was there before would swing into the kitchen and if you left it open it hung out halfway into the dining room. To fix this, we had a sliding barn door installed. It is both beautiful and perfectly functional! We're obsessed.

The next few updates we have planned for this room are new light fixtures, a cart, wall art and DIY Concrete Countertops (we figured we have nothing to lose since they need to be updated anyway! we've always wanted to try this project). Plus, a million tiny details!

Well, that's all for today! Do you want to see more? (Please say yes!) Next time you see this room it will be styled and in use! We're looking forward to making all our recipes for the blog in this newly renovated kitchen. xo. Elsie

Please note: In a future post we will share a full list of resources (paint colors, sources, appliances etc!) but we aren't quite there yet. Don't worry. It's coming!

Credits: Author and Photography: Elsie Larson