Kitchen Dreaming. With a Little Help from Cabinets Direct USA...

Our kitchen has come a LONG way.  When we purchased our home, it was a cramped, dark hole.  I knew it wouldn't take much to improve the space because, well, anything was better than what it was!!

It would have been fantastic to rip the entire kitchen out and start fresh, but we were working on a major budget. The entire main floor of our fixer upper, and then some, had to be renovated...so a total kitchen overhaul was way out of reach.  I needed to come up with a short-term, smaller scale reno and leave our kitchen dreams for down the road.

We kept the original cabinetry and general footprint of the kitchen the same to save a ton of money.  Then it was time to remove walls and the weird restaurant booth seating.

After that is was time to to lighten things up!  The cabinets were painted white and zhushed up with some new hardware.  I nixed the old linoleum floor and carried the hardwoods into the kitchen to keep the flow of our open concept home going.  Then we added some much needed new lighting, countertops, backsplash and appliances.

For an "in-the-meantime" renovation, we sure did a lot of work, but it was all done on a tight budget.  We spent the least we could and still ended up with a great looking kitchen.

Of course that great looking kitchen still has bones from the 1950's, when our house was built.  The doors may be solid wood, but the hardware is showing it's age.  And no amount of prep or priming could keep the heavily varnished, knotty pine cabinets from bleeding through a couple years later.  Don't get me wrong...our current kitchen gets the job done!!  But the design lover in me can't stop myself from dreaming of a kitchen that is both beautiful AND efficient.

Looking back, I'm thankful we couldn't afford a complete gut job of our kitchen when we bought our home. Living in the space for a few years has taught me how I want the space to look and, more importantly, function.

And even though we can't afford it now, I know we'll be replacing our charming kitchen one day.  So there is no better time than the present to start planning and prepping for our space.  I mean, how else will I know how much this whole shebang is going to cost us?!?

Not too long ago I found myself {along with hubby and my parents who were visiting} pulling up to a Cabinets Direct USA showroom.  Walking into that place, I was like a kid in a candy store!!!  They have the most stunning displays and super helpful sales people.  I was able to send my own sketch-up from floorplanner.com to their sales person who then translated my elementary work into the awesome images below.

During our reno we would flip-flop our current door and window placement.  This move would allow me to create a floor to ceiling pantry in the kitchen that we currently do not have.  I'm not going to lie...I love that I have two spacious linen closets in our hallway, but I've been missing that type of storage space in our kitchen.  This rearrange would solve that issue.

Then I took things a step further and even extended the island to the wall {since the door is no longer there}, giving us even more countertop and cabinet space.

{Pretend the bar height counter is extending all the way to the wall in the rendering below....just like the ones above.}

So what do you guys think of our "future" kitchen?  I'm kinda in love.  And now I'll just count the days months years until we can afford it. ;)

Anyone else dreaming of far-off renovations?!?!  I can't be the only one...