If you’re new here, let me tell you a little bit about us. I’m Kristen (Event Planner turned Interior Designer) and my husband, Huie, is the jack-of-all-trades (works as a Lineman for a power company by day and DIY’s by night). Basically, I dream it up and he builds it. There’s not much he isn’t willing to figure out on his own. 

We started our DIY journey several years ago when we purchased our first townhome as newlyweds. My husband grew up around tools his entire life. His father owned his own construction company and his grandfather build his entire house all on his own. That’s where the love of construction and DIY came from as Huie learned how to lay tile, and many other handy things as he grew up around that. Fast forward to today, and we’re now in our third home, ready to take on a fixer upper!

When we toured our house when it was on the market 2 years ago, we immediately fell in love with the bones of this place. What we didn’t love was all of the outdated, builder grade finishes that were still in the home after 20+ years.

My must have when we searched for our next home was a white brick exterior. We hated everything about this brick color and the exterior, but we knew that we could paint it white … and that’s just what we did!

Then, we saw the kitchen …. oh boy. Orange was not my favorite color.

Then, after we moved in, we had a leak in the kitchen and the floors were in terrible shape. That resulted in damaged floors, mold and damaged cabinets. While we saved up to renovate the floors and entire kitchen, we painted the cabinets white because that orange had to go!

A few months after we moved in, we painted the cabinets and built a faux hood range cover over our existing cabinets. The cabinets were very 1990’s builder grade, made out of particle board and not durable at all.

Huie and I started searching for flooring and because we had to remove most of our flooring on our main level, we knew we wanted to go with a waterproof flooring. We looked at 100’s of samples. We kept going back to Provenza’s MaxCore Moda Living Collection in the Finally Mine color. It is kid proof, pet proof, basically a life proof floor. With two toddlers and possibly expanding our family even more, we knew we had to get something durable. We found a local supplier and got them ordered.

We got to work removing the hardwood floors and all that goes along with that. Every single piece of wood was nailed and glued down, so we had our work cut out for us. We had carpet in our living room and what we used as a playroom and I’ve never been happier to see carpet GONE!

After we removed the hardwoods, we were ready to treat the mold and replace the damaged subfloor in the kitchen.

Now, to dream up the design! One thing that was really important to me was the hood. The range hood is the focal point of the kitchen. I knew I wanted this kitchen to feel very European Modern Farmhouse and warm in the wood tones in the hood, island and shelving, and modern with the cabinet knobs, white cabinets and X detail on the upper cabinets.

I drew up a sketch of what I envisioned for this space, keeping 85% of the same layout as the original kitchen and making the most use of our space by changing out cabinets and drawers where it made sense. When we moved in, the wall oven/microwave combo was so small and original to the 20+ year old home, that we couldn’t even find a wall oven/microwave unit that fit in that space provided. We made it work, but it was a tight fit. So when we drew up the drawings of this kitchen, we knew we had to move the cabinets over to the left a few inches to accommodate the proper space for our wall oven/microwave.

Want to see what I’ve been dreaming up for this kitchen?!

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Before we can install this kitchen, we have to install the Provenza Floors, so that’s what will be on the agenda this week! I can’t wait to show you the floors and final cabinet design next week! Follow along in stories all week long to get a behind the scenes look at our process here!

IMPORTANT LINKS:

One Room Challenge

The media partner for this incredibly fun and inspiring event is Better Homes and Gardens.

I am linking each week below as the challenge progresses:

My current ORC Posts: Week 2:  The Plan – you are here!

The Guest Participant Link-ups:  Week 1 |Week 2