Decor And The Dog: Before and After: Mr & Mrs

Our "Before and After" guest today is Lyndsay from Mr and Mrs. Lyndsay and her husband are currently fixing up their adorable Cape Cod home. Lyndsay's blog caught my attention with her kitchen (which she'll share with you today) but I definitely stuck around after seeing her painted built-ins (check them out here). I also blame her for my Pinterest addiction. It's always good to have someone to blame for your addictions, right?

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hi everyone! I'm Lyndsay from over at Mr & Mrs where my hubby and I are renovating our first home on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. I am thrilled to be guest posting for Michelle here at Decor and the Dog, especially to showcase my most favorite house project that my hubby and I have tackled yet...our kitchen!

Living in New England means high home prices, so when house hunting, my hubby and I knew we were going to be purchasing something that would need some work (Check out more about our home-buying process here). Being the foodies that we are, the most important item on our wishlist was that the kitchen needed to be roomy. It didn't need to be updated...we knew we could tackle that on our own, but it needed to have the right layout to be functional for two people who cook every night. Seriously, we eat out/order takeout maybe 1x every 2-3 months!

Here is what the kitchen looked like on our closing day:

like every blogger with their first home project...i WISH i had taken more before photos! Alas, all i have is this not-so-clear cell phone picture.

The negatives: natural wood cabinets (not my style), white (& grossly dirty) appliances, a broken microwave over the stove, tarnished brass hardware.

The positives: granite!! I am not sure that i would have chosen this color granite had we been replacing the counter tops, but since we aren't planning to stay in this house forever, it doesn't make sense to replace them.

Step #1 was to sand/paint all the cabinets. This, my friends, is NOT a fun project. Boy did my excitement diminish as I tackled cabinet after cabinet, after cabinet.

The whole process took us over 6 months because we needed to be able to use the kitchen throughout the process. So, instead of tackling everything at once, I completed little sections one at a time. Read about the cleaning, sanding, priming, painting process here.

The total cost of the cabinet re-do was $60.00 for paint and supplies and $90 for 40 new pieces of hardware and we were left with this:

and this:

(notice that we also ripped out the broken microwave AND the small cabinets above it)

Step #2: Appliances

You may notice that we already have our new fridge in this picture, due to an amazing price mistake discovery by my hubby, we purchased our fridge from Lowe's long before the rest of our appliances.

Aside from the fridge, we found the lowest prices on appliances from AJ Madison, a wholesale company out of New York. AJ Madison doesn't offer free installation and delivery like Lowe's or Home Depot, but even with the addition of the $100 charge for white glove delivery (the guys bring it into the room for you), we saved over $900 ordering from AJ Madison instead. The only downside...all the installation is on you. Luckily, my hubs felt confident that he could get it done. The worst part was leveling the stove, but we managed to get 'er done.

Read more about the types of appliances we decided on here.

Total cost for all appliances (microwave, dishwasher, double oven, hood, fridge): $3,066

Here is the kitchen after the appliances were installed:

Step #3- tiling the backsplash

I smiled from ear-to-ear when I finished cleaning, sanding, priming, painting the last cabinet and thought to myself- the worst is over!

HAHA! Little did I know what kind of time commitment tiling a backsplash is :)

Tiling our backsplash was easily the most backbreaking, foot killing, mind numbing, time consuming task we had ever taken on. When you purchase the beautifully neat 12 x 12 squares of tiles, it seems so easy, until you come to the realization that there is very little of the area you are tiling that actually fits a whole sheet. The tiles we picked were hard to work with because of their various shapes, sizes, and colors, and we ended up having to do many more custom cuts than we were hoping, and having to break apart most of the 12 x 12 sheets and fit individual tiles like puzzle pieces.

The tiling project took us about 40 straight hours to complete 27 square feet around the kitchen and cost $300 for tiles, grout, sealant, quikset, and trowels.

Before I show you what the kitchen looks like today, let's take a final look at the before:

and after $3, 500.00 and a lot of man hours, here is the after:

...and it's this clean and neat every day ;)

Hope you enjoyed my post! Thank you SOOO much Michelle, for inviting me!

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How's that for a kitchen make-over?? I have some pretty talented blog buddies! Be sure to stop by Mr and Mrs and check out Lyndsay's home renovations!!

Don't forget about our $50 PetSmart Gift Card Giveaway...enter here!

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