Blessed Foundation: Post 11: Kitchen Updates

When we first looked at our house, we knew the kitchen had some great potential.

"Potential."

Meaning, it needed some work.

The cabinets are custom and beautiful, but there isn't a whole lot else that we love about our kitchen.

We know that a lot of work has probably already gone into this room and we are so blessed to have all of the cabinet space and appliances. BUT, we still have some big plans for the space and wanted to share a few of them.

In this corner of the kitchen, we want to open up the room to the eating area where Alan is standing. ;)

Plans are to install a microwave drawer (there was no microwave in the kitchen), change out the stove for a downdraft model, and remove the cabinets between the kitchen and the eating area so that both areas flow together. If you're a visual person, check out my awesome drawing:

We know this is a lot of work and there are a lot of things that may not turn out exactly as we envision, but we'll learn as we go and get advise before we start something we can't reverse! I think we'll be able to come close to what we're picturing, though. =]

So, let's start from the beginning, shall we? The microwave.

Microwave

We found this cool microwave drawer on sale for a great deal at the Home Depot and snatched it up. There were some drawers in our kitchen that we decided we could sacrifice to make space for a built-in appliance. Unfortunately, we didn't know the first thing about installing a microwave, so it just sat in our garage for several months.

Living in a project house means that many nights, we rush home from work only to begin work on some part of the house. There's not always the time (or need) to cook a huge fancy meal for dinner (and thankfully, my husband doesn't demand this), so we go for what's fast. In my book, that usually means heating something up in the microwave.

We has been relying on one of these old microwaves for several months to get us through. Now, at first glance, this may not look too bad, but you need to know that this is a microwave I bought for my freshman year in college, so it is several years old and only 700 watts. It worked fine for most things, but it had some age and wear that caused a few issues in cooking. (We never could really figure out how to make it pop popcorn!)

After a few too many cold or partially cooked meals, we decided it was time to bite the bullet and figure out how to get the microwave drawer installed.

Fortunately, the day of the install, Alan's mom stopped by to say hello and in doing so, saved us from ourselves. We told her our plans to put in the appliance (which was along the lines of "that's where we're going to put it") and she had the bright idea to call in some professional support.

Apparantly, Alan's Uncle Jimmy used to do cabinet work -- how did we not know this? We called him up and he graciously drove on over to help us out. Thank goodness he did, because it turned out to be a big ordeal! They had to cut the cabinets, put in a shelf to hold the microwave, and piece some of the cabinet front back together beneath the microwave without showing the cuts or nails.

I wish I had taken pictures throughout the project, but it was a big commotion to get the microwave installed in the cabinets, so I mostly tried to stay out of the way.

Thanks to Uncle Jimmy and Alan, we got our microwave. I think it is perfect for this kitchen! (And just for grins, I got a picture of the old microwave so you can see the difference!)

Before: