Ripping Up Carpet & Renovating A White Kitchen

When Barbara sent us her nearly-too-good-to-be-true before and after photos we could not wait to share the eye candy. Here is her letter:

I have been enjoying your journal and thought I would send over my most recent remodeling project. My parents picked up a home that was built in the 70’s and gave me and my husband the project of remodeling it. Here are the before and after pictures of the kitchen. As you can see this home stayed in the 70’s until about a few months ago. Dark seemed to play a theme in the whole house. And wanna know what was hiding beneath all that brown carpet? Striking wood floors. We were so excited! Here are a few things we did to get the room into this decade:

• Cabinetry was semi-custom. We had a budget to work within so we went with cabinets from a company that worked out of China they are called HQ cabinets
• Countertops are from Contempo and done in Premium Black Granite
• Paint color is Glidden’s Lemon Ice
• Barstools are Ingolf from Ikea
• Clock is from Ikea

Thanks so much for the strong site! I hope you enjoy these before and after photos- it was a lot of work but well worth it! – Barbara

Here are the dark and dingy before photos:

And here is the kitchen now, after some major updating:

Is that not an remarkable makeover? Especially since Barbara and her husband had such a strong Hands-on approach and fearlessly ripped up that terrible carpet to uncover remarkable wood floors. And of course we enjoy that affordable Glidden paint and inexpensive Ikea furnishings helped to transform the space. It looks like a million bucks in there! Thanks so much for sharing your photos Barbara! What do you folks think? Is it not remarkable what a little updating can do? What is your go-to part? I am torn between the glass fronted doors and the remarkable pendant lamps over the peninsula…