Cottage Kitchen Remodel – The Beginning

Let’s talk about our old cottage kitchen. If you’ve been following me on IG for a while, you’ve been watching our slow progress since February. I haven’t detailed the kitchen remodel yet, so I figured I would start from the beginning. 

When we purchased the house a little more than a year and a half ago, we had no intentions of demoing the kitchen this early. We thought we would work on two bedrooms and maybe a bathroom before even touching the kitchen.

I started a new job an hour and a half away in February. It was my second week on the job when I received a phone call from my boyfriend. He asked what I ordered from Amazon, which was simply a lunch box and a tissue box holder. 

I was confused when he asked if I ordered anything that had a battery. When I said, “no”, he told me the kitchen caught fire. He Facetimed me to show me the damage, and all I could see was smoke. 

After telling my boss that I had to go, I drove home to assess the damage. The range and vent hood were a loss cause. The surrounding cabinets were black from the flames, and the home reeked of smoke. 

We determined the cause of the fire was a lose wire in the vent hood. The sparks ignited the packages my boyfriend just set on the counter on fire. Fortunately, he was home to put the fire out before my whole house caught on fire. 

All of our other projects were put on hold as we started ripping out cabinets. Our intention was to replace one section at a time. Those plans changed when we discovered the subfloor was rotted in areas. The project quickly turned into a complete demo. 

In the first couple months, we gutted the entire kitchen, opened up the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, started replacing subfloor and began working on our new kitchen layout.

Our kitchen is a small galley-style kitchen, but I wanted to maximize the space as much as possible. I decided that cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling would do just that. I opted for KraftMaid Deveron Cabinets in Dove White, but it would take several months for them to be installed due to COVID-19 and other issues.

We purchased a new stackable Maytag washer and dryer to create more space for our refrigerator and ordered other new appliances to replace the ones that were destroyed in the fire.  

Then we began working on the floor. Underneath the existing tile and backer board, there was a layer of hardwood floors and subfloor. While I normally would love to keep existing hardwood floors, these were rotted in most sections and needed to be removed. The original subfloor was wooden planks rather than sheets of plywood often seen today. We shored up the floor joists and laid down new subfloor throughout the kitchen. 

At this point, it was definitely the most difficult part of living in this remodel. We were using a game table as a kitchen sink, all of my kitchen items were stored in different rooms and we used a camper stove in our living room to cook our meals. All of this effort is starting to become worth it.

Your Friend,

Laci