Back in July my dad and I started doing an almost full renovation of my kitchen. I had an idea in mind to open up the room, add a big island bar top, and completely redo the flooring. It’s taken about 4 months, but we finally have everything on the list done! What I have found as a home owner is that I never feel like my house is truly “done”. There’s always a project here or there that I want to do to make it more of my own. This kitchen renovation was a HUGE step in that direction, and I have enjoyed it so much! Keep reading for all the details of what we did.

Step 1: Get Ride of the Walls

I won’t spend a whole lot of time here because I have a whole post on this part of the renovation. But, this was definitely the biggest eye opening change that we did for the kitchen. I will say again that I owe 150% of the gratitude to my dad for doing the vast majority of all of this work, and having a smile on his face the whole time too. He is an engineer and has done contracting work in the past, so to say he was an incredible resource isn’t doing it justice.

At this step in the process, he demolished and pulled out 2 walls of the kitchen to create an open floor plan. If that sounds easy, it’s because I left out all of the additional electrical work that went into it. Again, lucky for me, my dad understands basically all things involved with building a house. He moved all of the appropriate switches and plugs after removing the walls, and we were able to get this step completed in about 3 days.

Here are some pictures of the before and after from removing the walls!

Step 2: Putting in the Kitchen Island

Step 2 was a very special and specific ask that I had. After getting rid of the walls, I wanted to add in a large kitchen island with a bar top. The specific part was that I wanted both countertops to be concrete! I love the concrete countertop look because of how clean and modern it is. My dad hand poured both of the tops for me, making them even more special!

We bought the cabinets themselves from Home Depot, and my dad bought the kit for the concrete countertops online. He poured those himself at his home shop, and then we transported all of the pieces over to my house. The tops were EXTREMELY heavy, so we used straps called Shoulder Dolly Moving Straps to be able to get them out of the car and into the house. That was really the hardest part! After getting everything inside, Dad was able to set it all up pretty quickly.

Here are some pictures of during and after the island was installed!

Step 3: The Floors

This is the part of the renovation that took the longest, and was honestly the highest of my to do list. The kitchen floors matched the hardwood that had been put through the majority of the top floor of the house before I purchased it. For the most part, the floors look great! But, the kitchen was a different story. Not long after I bought the house and moved in, the floors in the kitchen started to warp. They weren’t consistent, were pulled up in weird places, and it became very frustrating. I HATED THEM.

Once Dad got the walls torn out, he pulled up a small area of the floor to see that these hardwood floors had been laid on top of many, many layers of previous linoleum. That, plus the fact that there was a very tiny water drip coming from the back of my refrigerator, is what caused them to warp to the degree they had. Dad, of course, fixed the tiny leak in about 30 seconds and put a game plan together to rip all the floors out.

Here are some pictures of the floors after we ripped them up!

Next was deciding on the new flooring! I knew I wanted tile, and ended up picking it out from Lowe’s. It was a pretty easy process to get it purchased and the labor scheduled. There was about a 5-6 week turn time from the day I paid for the materials and labor to when the floors were installed. It wasn’t a terrible wait time, but you can see that I was down to the sub-floor for that time period. I was beyond excited when it was finally time to have the new floors put in. I am happy to say, the final product exceeded my expectations with how great it looks!

Here are some pictures of the new floors going in and the finished product!

Final Thoughts

I don’t feel like I’m someone that has “vision” and can imagine how things will look. With that in mind, I am ecstatic with how all of the renovations to the kitchen turned out! All in budget, we were able to stay around $4,000 with materials and labor. I was super lucky to have my dad do a lot of the labor, so that certainly helped with cost! Regardless, I would say the return on investment for this project is very much worth it! The space feels completely different in all the best ways, and it really brightens up the house as a whole.

If you’re considering doing something like this to your kitchen I have just a few suggestions. Do your research, take your time, and look forward to how much you will love your new space!