OUR KITCHEN TRANSFORMATION FROM DULL TO BRIGHT!

Eeeee!! I'm SO excited to share our kitchen renovation with you! We've been living in it for a while but it took some time to get to it and take the "after" photos without all the baby/toddler stuff to share. I am SO happy with every single little thing we did to improve our kitchen at the lower end of the kitchen renovation standard cost (20-30k). Ours was about 9-10k and I'll tell you every single thing we did and what it cost us. 

SO as soon as we bought the house I knew the cabinets needed to be painted white and I wanted the appliances updated. The cabinets were in good shape (about 10-15 years old) and there was no reason to tear them down and start all over. We paid a professional painter $500 to use the Rust-oleum Cabinet Transformation Kit and paint them for us in white, and let me tell you, the $500 was WELL WORTH IT. It took about 4 coats to get over our wood, and with a toddler on the hip and baby on the way, "ain't nobody got time for that". I replaced the cabinet hardware with these Hickory Hardware Pulls from Home Depot. I think the total cost of these was around $100.. So with the paint kit, hardware, and painter fees, we're at about $700. 

Next, appliances. We went to County TV & Appliance in Stamford, Connecticut and got a great deal on the microwave, refrigerator, stove, and dishwasher -- I think around $4000 total. If you're in the area, I highly recommend County, family owned and in business forever, see Sean Rosen and tell him Liz Joy sent you. 

Finally, the backsplash and countertops. I couldn't WAIT for this but it took about a year for us to pull the trigger. We were doing a dormer addition (we have a cape) and the contractor said he could do the backsplash for us in a day, which he did :) We paid $500 for have subway tile installed and about $150 (??? I think) for the materials. 

I SO DESPERATELY IN ALL CAPS wanted Carrara marble. There is nothing in looks that compares to me BUT my brother installed them about three years ago and he hates them. He and his wife always complain about how porous they are and how hard they are to clean. Supposedly everything stains them, especially baby formula (and we have a baby who drinks formula) so... 

I went with a granite called Colonial White, the closest thing I could get to carrara marble. The marble I mean granite, install and stainless steel inset sink cost a total of close to $4000 and I'm SO happy with it. It has the white clean finish I wanted and I don't have to worry one single second of what gets on it. Formula, wine, oil, pour it on, nothing will get through :)

Last but not least, the faucet. I received a Brizo Talo Kitchen Faucet with SmartTouch technology
after attending an amazing blogger conference sponsored by Brizo years ago but never owned a house I could put it in until now. Do you know how good it felt to finally take it out of the box and install this beauty? We absolutely love our Brizo and I will never shop for anything else for kitchen and/or bathroom.

Here are some other shots of our newly renovated WHITE kitchen:

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me via my instagram @purejoyhome OR email at lizjoycreative@gmail.com. 

Thanks for stopping by!!