That's Much Better!

Okay, here is the finished product. First some details. The cabinets doors are solid maple, natural finish. These are all stock (non-custom) cabinets in the Kingsley Maple Arch line from Merillat. The cabinets are frameless - they have no front bezel on which the doors are anchored. Instead the doors are anchored into the sides of the cabinets, (on the inside, of course). We chose the natural maple probably in response to the dark wood cabinets that were there originally. Having the light-colored cabinets really brightened the room, and it gave us some flexibility in the style of countertop. We chose laminate countertops from Pionite instead of solid-surface just to save some money. Getting custom solid-surface countertops would have nearly cost us the amount of the rest of the kitchen. Mr. Rick used matching edge molding on the edges of the countertops for an elegant, custom look.

The refrigerator and pantry area takes the place of the old desk and bifold-door pantry. We originally wanted to get a specialized pantry cabinet with swing-out shelves in the doors. But we had a problem with both space and cost - it would have been so wide that we wouldn't be able to fit the microwave shelf, and it would have drained an additional $2,500. We came up with an inventive solution - we used the narrower tall cabinet you see to the right, and filled it with 5 pull-out shelves. It fit better since it was narrower, and we still ended up using all of the available space in the cabinet. Note the finishing touches like the wine rack and the crown molding.

One of the things we did to keep cost down was to use our existing appliances. We had just bought the stove and dishwasher new when we moved in two years before, so it didn't make sense to replace them. Good thing we bought them in white - they still matched our new decor. Maybe it would have been nice to get a gas cooktop with an in-wall oven, but we didn't want to sacrifice cabinet space for a wall oven. Do you like the matching bar stools in the island? They're from Target.

Another idea from Mr. Rick was to remove the single doorway into the family room and open it up with a large archway. Removing the useless little closet next to the powder room opened up this area. Now we keep our barware here so our guests can help themselves to a drink between the family room and kitchen.

The next thing on our shopping list is a new dinette set. We are looking for a nice natural maple one to match our cabinets. We really like the chairs with casters on our existing set, so our next set will have casters as well.
If you noticed in the previous page, there were a lot of gaps in the laminate flooring from the original cabinets. Fortunately we had saved a large amount of the flooring when they installed it, and the original installers were able to patch-in where the flooring was missing. This would have been easier with real tile flooring, but the folks at Clark Flooring in Ramsey did it and you can't tell it has been patched at all.

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