Out with the old and in with the new  

If you've been following along, you know that we have been renovating the home we just purchased over the last few months. When we first looked at this property, I loved how open the kitchen was and all the cabinet storage and countertop space it offered, but it was a bit outdated and definitely didn't fit our style. 

Kitchen Before 

Our main goal for our kitchen renovation was to make it more inviting. We've always spent a lot of time in the kitchen and now that we are finally back “home” in Southern Illinois, I knew we would be having friends and family over on a regular basis. We decided to work with the existing footprint of the kitchen which made our renovation ideas seem within reach and something we could do mostly ourselves. 

I knew we could convert this outdated country kitchen to a new French-inspired farmhouse one by making intentional design decisions early on.  

Right away, I began to envision brightening up this space with paint and adding French elements. My husband and I are very visual people so I also put together a design board to incorporate all our ideas for the kitchen renovation. The design board included new quartz countertops, painted cabinets, a farmhouse sink, marble backsplash, custom island and adding a vintage chandelier.

We didn't waste any time and that same week we started our demo. It was truly “out with the old and in with the new.”

 Kitchen Demo 

Demo Process:

• Flooring - We removed the old laminate flooring and replaced with French Oak  luxury vinyl from Home Depot. 
• Sink/Countertops - We decided to get new quartz countertops in the kitchen so before we could install the sink, we had to remove the old maroon laminate countertops and stainless sink. We took care not to damage the walls upon removal, but we knew we would eventually add a marble backsplash.
• Paint - To make the kitchen more inviting we painted the walls intense white and the ceilings simply white - both by Benjamin Moore. 
• Cabinets/Hardware - Since we knew we would be painting the cabinets ourselves and replacing the hardware, we labeled and removed the cabinet doors and old hardware.
• Lighting - This was another element we decided to update so both fixtures were removed. As a temporary fix, I spray painted the light fixture over the peninsula. 
• Appliances - We needed a new refrigerator and rather than replacing only it with all other mix-matched appliances, we sold the others and purchased a matching set. 

While the demo of this space was fun, it was also very time consuming and took us many late nights to prepare for the steps to follow.  Next week, I will be sharing more about the progress and when I started seeing my design decisions come to life.  As always, thank you for stopping by the blog and following along on our renovation journey.

Xx,

Amy 

This is a sponsored blog post, but all opinions are my own.