Before

When we moved in about 3 years ago, we always knew we would update our kitchen. Neither of us like white cabinets, floors, countertops, appliances, or sinks, nor do we like black/white striped wallpaper. We ripped that out the first night we had the key.

It wasn't until I had a weekend off work with no plans, and we ended up at Home Depot that we spontaneously decided to start work. I think it was a combination of two factors: Bean convinced me to give up on the solid surface countertops (which cost $$), and we figured that we could save a lot of money on the tile if we didn't use the beautiful travertine that his parents had already given us a few boxes of ($2 a square foot VS $1 for another kind of tile) and saved it for our next house aka 'THE' house.

This time, we made a rough plan, and the very next weekend Bean started ripping out the floors while I worked 9 days in a row at the store. This time, we actually remembered to take before pictures. This is how our house usually looks- not perfectly uncluttered, but good enough.

 White. White. White. White. White. Gross. Thick grout lines. Gross.

 And here's the entryway. Did I mention we are going to re-tile that too? It'll be the same stuff in both areas and we figured it's easier to do both at the same time.

 Back to the kitchen. Goodbye disgusting white microwave, that doesn't even have a rotating plate. I didn't know microwaves were even made without a spinning plate in the middle! Goodbye gross, hard to clean cooktop and goodbye ugly oven that takes full advantage of the maximum cooking time on all foods.

 And finally, goodbye gross white sink and ugly white faucet. We will not miss soaking you in bleach before friends come over, or the ugly stainless ring around the edges that catches gunk.

I never thought I would be happy to look at these pictures, but now we've worked for 2 weekends and we've made some real progress. I can't wait to show you!