Kitchen Remodel

The kitchen in our 1908 home was in dire need of a makeover.

We started by moving everything out the room, and carefully pulling out the base cabinets so I could rebuid them.

After much rewiring and plaster repair, we were ready to start rebuilding. We started by adding knotty pine wainscoting to reinforce the rustic feel.

The next big project was laying the new brazilian cherry flooring. The brazilian cherry is extremely hard, so the nailing was a bit of a challenge. Thanks to a lot of time spent laying out the first course of flooring, the job went very smoothly.

The cabinets were stained very dark – nearly black. The cabinets were constructed of red oak and we liked the rustic style of the doors, so we decided to strip and sand the cabinets, rebuild the drawers, replace the drawer glides with modern full extension glides, and replace all of the hinges and pulls.

We are very happy with the results – much lighter and an up-to-date look that still has a bit of an old-time feel.

The next project is a counter height rectangular table to replace the round country design table. The counter space is very limited, so the counter height table will provide additional prep area.

The countertops were very worn formica. We did not have the budget to use real granite, but we used a formica pattern granite that actually looks pretty nice. We used real stone for the wall between the backsplash and the cabinets.

-- Paul, St Louis, MO, www.paulheirendt.com