Mountain Cottage Kitchen Reno 2.0

WHAT?

Our kitchen was one of 3 interior rooms that was completely finished. It took quite a few projects/years to get it to look like this: plank ceiling, custom range hood, installed cabinets, fabricated and stained countertop, vintage pantry, fabricated and installed open shelves, tile backsplash  and banquette. 

It took us several years to do the kitchen projects' the only thing left to do was the floor.

It was pretty wasn't it?

Especially, considering how it looked when we bought the place.

Last month, we arrived at our mountain cottage and found there was water on the floor. Turns out the faucet had leaked into the cabinet, under the flooring in the kitchen, under the flooring in the adjoining bedroom and even into the encapsulated crawl space. Thankfully it didn't reach the banquette.

Mr. DIY cut a hole in the bottom of the sink cabinet and, yes, it was wet and all the bottom of the cabinets were damaged. 

The next day, I called our State Farm agent. They called Emergency Restoration Experts who arrived two hours later and sprayed the kitchen with an anti microbial and turned fans on.

I cried when we left after a couple of days and then I got to work redesigning the kitchen and looking at LVP flooring.

Here's what I came up with:

This design shifts the refrigerator to the right and gives us a little more counter space (13 more inches), gives us 3 more drawers and more wall cabinet space because they go to the ceiling. We'll be getting 2 rollout trays in the 24" cabinet to the left of the range. 

The current cabinets are by Kraftmaid. The reason why we chose Kraftmaid the last time was because I wanted a pullout pantry. I tell you, THAT was an expensive cabinet. The problem with having a cabinet there is that it got hot during the summer because that corner of the house gets afternoon sun and we don't keep the AC on when we're not there. 

This time, I think we'll chose Shenandoah cabinetry (American Woodmark). They're good cabinets and offer a good selection. For this house, even the in stock cabinetry would be good enough, but in we need a 39" blind corner cabinet and they don't offer that size. 

More thoughts as I was deciding on a design:

The only time we use the 24" dishwasher is when we stay there a week, but we didn't want to not have one,  so we think an 18" dishwasher would be perfect. That gives us 6 extra inches for a cabinet. . I also don't feel that we needed the 15" pullout pantry (for the reason mentioned above) or the 1 1/2" refrigerator panel. Because of the extra space an 18" drawer bank would fit perfectly. Plus, there's 5+" space to the right of the refrigerator to stick a broom in and a folding step stool.

 

I think we'll have a quartz countertop installed. Mr. DIY is still working on the bathroom, so we'll be having the cabinets and countertop installed. 

The only project he will do is re-installing the range hood and possibly the backsplash, but that's it.

Mr. DIY is retired as of March 1st, but he already has enough projects.

The current flooring is sheet vinyl and it's throughout the whole house(except for the bathrooms), so all the flooring has to be replaced. We're going to choose Malibu Wide Plank French Oak in Alturas finish from the Home Depot. We'll have to order extra to finish the stairs and the upstairs bedroom. 

Malibu wide plank French Oak Alturas from Home Depot

What do you think? Anything I forgot? Anything to add?

Thanks for stopping by,

Pam