monarch way

If we had more time, we would have taken out the wall between the living room and kitchen. Since we didn’t, we worked with the space we had.

There is a soffit that we had to work with, a big window (that I want eventually to be a door to a covered deck), and a small area that my dining table and cabinet had to fit in.

Ignore the bulky black refrigerator, or better yet, imagine a counter depth stainless refrigerator is there instead.

BEFORE

Yes, that’s carpet you see. This room was so gross and dark. Originally, I was planning on painting the cabinets but once I saw how dirty they were, we added cabinets to the budget.

Because of the allotted space and what we had to fit into the space, we had to stay with the u-shaped kitchen. We did increase the cabinets on the right side of the sink and move the peninsula a few inches farther from the wall with the refrigerator.

DEMO & CONSTRUCTION

However, trying to find someone near us to do cabinets under $5,000 was impossible. We looked at all assembled cabinets and went with Home Depot Hampton Bay Avondale Shaker Alpine White cabinets. They are not MDF. However, they nick easily, the bottoms are unfished, and we had to make the pre-made sizes fit in this space which was challenging. Which meant no special microwave cabinet (it’s sitting on the counter).

Also, they were shipped late and because it is Wyoming, they arrived very late. We did not have a kitchen or kitchen sink for over four months. Thank goodness my dad installed a mop sink in the mudroom because if not we would have been using the bathroom sinks.

This is the first place I want to install crown molding. I feel like crown molding will help camouflage the soffit. We also need to finish the bottom of the upper cabinets. A stainless refrigerator and oven are on the list.

In an effort to be less complicated. I didn’t ask for new lights over the peninsula and just put pendants where junction boxes already existed. I am hoping to put some faux can lights in a couple of places in the kitchen.

The countertops are quartz. We chose the biggest slab so that we could get countertops, a four inch backsplash, and window sill. If we’d had the budget, this room would have looked completely different, but regardless, what we have ended up with is one thousand percent better than the before.