You guys we finally wrapped up our full kitchen renovation, and I have some fun before & after pictures for you, as well as all the details on what we chose and how we did it on a small budget.

First for some before pictures of our dark, dated kitchen… there was only one overhead light, and the previous owners had actually plugged in spotlights that they had sitting on the cabinets. It felt cramped, and the island was soo wide it was hard to fully open the fridge door.

We originally planned on just replacing the countertops and backsplash, and switching out appliances and lighting. After chatting it through with our awesome contractor and doing some research, we ended up gutting the whole kitchen, saving just the hardwood floors and the dishwasher. If you are remodeling in the Winston-Salem area I HIGHLY recommend Chris Jones Construction. We will definitely use him again, although we are happy to be done with renovations for now!

To save money, my husband did the whole kitchen demo himself! Definitely impressive, and a ton of work. We had planned on ditching the upper cabinets, and would have salvaged the lowers, but they were low quality, and we couldn’t move around the appliances how we wanted to without starting fresh.

We found so many layers and holes behind the cabinets, and decided to leave smoothing out the walls to our contractor. Since we were not doing uppers, we wanted to make sure they had the right base to work with.

We visited several cabinet store, and were looking for only lower cabinets and cabinets for our island, as well as a row of cabinets in our pantry/laundry room. The cheapest ones we were quoted came in around $15k, and it definitely was pushing our budget up higher than we wanted. We also wanted custom colors for the island and laundry room, so we were told the only way to do that was to have them custom built. Fortunately our contractor came through with a salvage shop on Liberty Street in downtown Winston-Salem. We selected all of our cabinets there, and were able to buy a mix of white and unfinished wood - and the total was under $2k! Totally worth sanding and painting them down! And I had wanted to pick our my own hardware anyways.

Before our cabinets were installed, we had the electrician run wires for new sconces to go over the windows. They also discovered chewed up wires in the walls which they replaced - yay old homes.

We knew we wanted white countertops, and did not want the price or maintenance of marble. We ended up going with Alaska White Quartz, which has a bold gray vein that runs through it. We loved it, and used it for our countertops, island and laundry room/pantry. We used L&D Tile and Granite, and they were amazing to work with, and the best price for the quality.

Our sink also came from Liberty Street Savage, and is a large white ceramic farmhouse style sink. I love having the space! Our faucet is a gorgeous champagne bronze and is the Delta Broderick pull down faucet. We did the add on for the touch feature, which in theory sounded amazing, but looking back I wish we hadn’t paid for the update. It’s too sensitive and will turn off too easily.

We went with a classic white subway tile with a beveled edge and a medium gray grout. We tiled all the way to the ceiling since we were skipping the uppers, and I love how it looks! It definitely makes the kitchen look brighter and more open.

For lighting, I ordered the two bronze sconces from Bellacor, and it is the Linden Warm Brass Sconce. These add some soft lighting over the windows, and help a ton when cooking.

The island light is from Anthropologie and is the Ara Pendant. I love it, and even with one bulb it gives off enough light.

Paint…. we kept the walls Sherwin Williams Repose Gray and just touched them up. The trim is a bright white, and is still in the process of being touched up. For the island we wanted something brighter than a navy but not too bold.. we ended up settling on HGTV Home by Sherwin Williams Long Horizon blue. The hardware I picked up from Lowes to match the lighting, and it was affordable and classic. We used the brushed bronze Brainerd Caroline.

We are still decorating and adding the final touches… roman shades are in the works.. but we are so excited to have a bright white kitchen full of light! We don’t miss having upper cabinets at all - I did try to do mostly pull out drawers for our lowers, and it makes organization easier and we can stack our dishes in there. With that said, we do have a built in china cabinet in our dining room where we store all of our drinking glasses.

I would love to hear what you think! Anyone else into the no uppers trend?

xoxo

Liz