Kitchen Renovations Our Plans & How We Bought Our Kitchen

I am beyond excited to start the biggest (and no doubt the most stressful) project in our house since we bought it just over two years ago. Today I will be sharing with you our plans and ideas for the kitchen renovation project we will be starting shortly! Remember my post on our mini kitchen makeover when I painted the cabinets and tiles? Well this time there is nothing mini about our plans!

Our old kitchen consists of 2 rooms that are divided (see the archway there?). The smaller room has been used as a dumping ground/Coco’s bedroom for the time being.

Dated kitchen and dining room before the renovations

There is another wall that seperates the kitchen and the dining room (where the serving hatch is). When we bought the house, we both said straight away the two walls will be coming down and we will make the most of the space to create a nice open plan kitchen/dining room.

As I always wanted a large kitchen island, we had to somehow re-work the kitchen layout and come up with a plan.. The current position was not an option (side door leading to the garden and kitchen door leading to hallway were opposite each other). We realised that the only way we could have the island was if we blocked the side door off and changed the kitchen layout completely. More work (and cost) yes, but this was going to be our dream kitchen!!

We decided to turn our dining room window into a French door that would lead into the garden (and hopefully patio area that is on our list of things to do!) Turns out the blocking off a door required a planning permission (leading to a bit of a delay), which I am pleased to say we have since acquired! We are still waiting for our made to measure patio door to arrive as this is when the real work begins…

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We went to see a kitchen designer, who took the measurements and did us a lovely kitchen design. My wish list for our dream kitchen was big – kitchen island, Belfast sink and granite worktops meant that this kitchen would cost a lot more than we had anticipated, so things started to come off the list.. champagne taste and prosecco budget you know.. In the end we were left with things that were ok(ish) but not exactly what we wanted (the layout was perfect though see the hood, that’s where the rear door was). I also could not believe the cost of the cabinets…and worktops….


Then believe it or not Shaun saw an advertisement on the local buy and sell site – huge kitchen with GRANITE worktops! Sadly someone else got it (or so we thought). A couple of weeks later we got in touch with the seller just to double check and turns out it was still available! We went to look at it and voila paid the deposit there and then (I even bargained and got an extra £150 off!!) I know you must think we are crazy!!! But bear with us….

So our current plan is (in maybe not the correct order):-

  1. Replace window with French door in dining room;
  2. Block off a doorway in the kitchen;
  3. Ensure all sockets/electrics are safe;
  4. Remove old radiators & cap them off;
  5. Knock 2x walls down;
  6. Plaster over x2 doorways;
  7. Remove old ceiling;
  8. Re-arrange electrics/switches/sockets/lighting;
  9. Plasterboard over ceiling;
  10. Install flooring & underfloor heating;
  11. Design and build our kitchen from the existing cabinets roughly going by the kitchen design we had prepared;
  12. Shuffle the cabinets and worktops around and hope it will all fit;
  13. Arrange cabinets and build the island;
  14. Install appliances, sink, tap & radiator;
  15. Install window cills;
  16. Granite worktops will have to be cut to suit but there is enough for all cabinets (minus the island)!
  17. Build/buy solid wood worktop for the island (whichever works out cheapest!);
  18. Paint the kitchen cabinets & island;
  19. Add brand new hardware;
  20. Paint the ceiling/walls and add the finishing touches.

We have also finally decided on the tiles & flooring too and are waiting for a quote from our tiler. The lighting, appliances and radiatiors are slowly arriving and this is all starting to feel very real even though no real work has started yet!

Follow along on Instagram to see more on our kitchen renovations and stories as we go along!!

https://www.instagram.com/fromevijawithlove/


Have you done a kitchen renovation?? I would love to hear your tips on how to survive this !!!

2 thoughts on “Kitchen Renovations Our Plans & How We Bought Our Kitchen

  1. We bought a second hand kitchen and it was the best decision I ever made! I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It came with built in appliances, a Belfast sink, and the granite worktops, and we got it for a ridiculously cheap price. Even the stove cooker came with it. In fact, I wrote a blog post about it (click my name to read it).

    I think second hand is definitely the way forwards. You might struggle to get everything to fit where you want it, and it might take a bit of experimentation to work out where your units will go, but it’ll be worth it! Can’t wait to see how it turns out.

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