The bad and the worst!
Okay brace yourself for a slap in the face… well, really it is not that bad, until you start looking up close, and yes we are going to be looking up close (be sure to bring a face mask and hand sanitizer!)
I want to step back in time to show you the progression of our recent kitchen remodel. We’ve never really shown you the little updates we made, because a lot of them weren’t blog worthy.
So let’s show you what we saw when we walked through the house… (the house was only like 8 years old, so the cabinets are still relatively new, they are just super cheap) So for us we were excited at the plainness of the kitchen cuz we saw a ton of potential, not so excited about the weeks worth of elbow grease it took to clean it. Here is the range and refrigerator side:
Below is the view looking into the laundry room and the garage door. The tile in the kitchen was in pretty good shape, even though we didn’t love the color (still don’t, but they are still alive and kickin’)
Behind the sink is a half wall with a bar top that we wanted to change. The dishwasher was cheap and plain.
So that is the overall layout of the kitchen, now here are the basic elements… in all their grimy glory. I don’t mean to sound like a snot but buying this house was a HORRIFIC experience, the guy took 13 days to sign, we were homeless and running out of cash and one of his “excuses” was that he was having cleaners come clean the house… You tell me if you think the house was cleaned?
There was only one florescent ceiling light for the whole kitchen.
Here is a close up of the tile. It was so disgusting! I had the carpet cleaners steam clean the tile when they came for the rest of the house. It was the best $1o0ish bucks I’ve spent in a long time! The tile is like an extremely obnoxious fake version of Saltillo tile. And I have to admit I don’t love the original, so the ugly fake version was even worse.
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The countertops were peachy pink, stained with red koolaid, on. every. counter…. lovely.
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I don’t think that the fridge was ever cleaned, like ever…
Here is our lovely range. It reminds me of an Oreo… black -white- black (with an extra bit of white…) I guess they couldn’t decide if they wanted a black range or a white range, so they just threw in a little bit of both.
I guess they put the foil on a little too late? NASTINESS!
The microwave works well, especially with the inch of filmy grease covering it.
Here is the cheap faucet with a really shallow sink. You can hardly get any dishes under the faucet to rinse them. I don’t know how long is has been since the faucet was cleaned, let alone the sink? Maybe a decade? Oh wait the house isn’t quite that old, 8 years? Sounds right.
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Well there you have it the UGLY truth. The first walk through of the kitchen before we touched it.
We had a LOT of plans for this kitchen after we scrubbed it within and inch of it’s life. But things had to change a bit, when our plans for the house changed. So we will talk more about this tomorrow!
Here are a few of the plans: None of them came to fruition, but I always enjoying thinking about how we could change spaces to make them work better. And I think it is interesting to see what could have been done.
A few rough sketches over the existing elevations:
A few renderings we made with different idea or two:
Well, we’ll see ya tomorrow for more info!!
Check out the first changes we made here, the subway tile back splash (and tutorial) and how we updated the cabinets (also with a tutorial!)!
Ewwwww….that is n.a.s.t.y! I’m sorry, but I don’t get how people can live in filth like that, I’m OCS when it comes to cleaning. I can’t wait to see what you do with your kitchen, they are my favorite makeovers. P.S. we have that EXACT stove/oven (except ours is clean, lol), it came with our house when we bought it new in 2007, I guess it’s “builder’s basic”. We can’t wait to get all stainless!!!
Yes, the builders must have been getting a REALLY SMOKIN’ deal on these ranges(cuz I think they are factory rejects!!) The problem for me is that while ugly it has all the functions I needed in a stove, so it wasn’t worth replacing!. And as far as the cleaning goes, I am far from perfect, but I don’t keep my kitchen like this… and I definitely wouldn’t sell it like this! I just don’t understand it!
AMEN! We just moved into our first home in July and our kitchen was the same way. I swear they fried a chicken once a week and NEVER scrubbed anything. Plus they had naughty dogs (I think three) and kids. It was a foreclosure and even though the bank sent through cleaners, some dear friends came over and the three of us spent six. Count it, SIX HOURS doing hard-core cleaning and scrubbing. Just the cabinets and one of the bathrooms. Bless my friends, they were such life savers. I’m so glad your kitchen is now clean–it makes everything feel better, doesn’t it?
Yes! You lucky girl to have such kind friends! Just having a a clean kitchen does WONDERS to how you feel about life!
Ah!! I have those same cabinets in my builder grade home. Previous owners didn’t like to clean, I take it. LOL You are right – they are cheap!!! I want to get rid of mine so badly!!! Just not the funds for that right now. My whole house is builder grade cheap like those cabinets. We are replacing windows and all kinds of other things too. Ever so slowly.
That is exactly what we did in our house, but we usually worked with the cabinets and updated it in different ways not all paint. I hate the builder grade, but right now we don’t even have a real kitchen so… ya know, builder grade even sounds good to me right now (silly me!)!!
Oh but the drawers in the island are coming apart. They were haphazardly stapled together. The rest are ok. The laminate on the bottom cabinets on the inside of some of them doesn’t even come all the way to the front oak facings. These are up there with the stock, stain them yourself cheapy ones from Menards. But, for now, they work and yes it is better than nothing. One day, you will have your kitchen again. Your home turned out so pretty!!! I wish I had a 1/4 of you and your hubby’s talent!!
Thanks you for the compliment but you gotta remember, we didn’t get this talent all at once, we still learn something new from every project we do, and the more you work on projects the more tools you collect to help you do a better job. My advice is start small and do what you can, it will give you the courage to take the next remodeling step!
I redid my kitchen and I wish I had listened to myself. I wanted the micro in a upper cab w no door away fro m the stove. Didn’t listen,caved to everyone saying that was stupid. Also I wanted a slide in stove,backsplash that went to the counter.NOPE,NOPE,NOPE!!!!!!!SUBWAY TILE ALSO.ANOTRHER NO.WISH i WOULD OF STUCK TO MY IDEAS.
DARN IT! I think sometimes it is better not to ask and just say that you love how it turned out! I hope next time you can get what you want!
I’m kind of surprised that the house was on the market in that condition. What reputable realtor allows a home owner to show a house that filthy? Maybe I’m just naive. Ugh. just ugh. So glad you got it cleaned up. Can’t wait to see what you did with it.
The poor Realtor selling the house, you have got to read the “13 day” post about how awful the experience was buying from the owner from he-double you know what, but it is long, and you might vomit.
Oh wow, that is disgusting! I love the idea of open shelving in a kitchen and I’m not too bad about keeping ours organized but we have hod podge of dishes and I’m not sure if it would like right. Most of the pictures I’ve seen of open shelving has matching contents.
It depends, sometimes the hodge-podge, mis-matching dishes can look really cool! I think you just have to be comfortable with that as a style decision. Not just a happenstance. If it is not your style, then update them as you have the budget. But I LOVE dishes, all kinds and all colors, so I don’t think it would bug me too much!
I’m sorry that you still had such a disaster to clean up when you had to wait on the seller who claimed to be having it cleaned for you. That was obviously just a ploy to put off signing the paperwork for a few more days.
When I worked as a real estate agent, I saw many homes like this. I showed a house once that reeked of rotting chicken and cat urine. My shoes actually stuck to the floor and made a nasty slurping sound when I walked through.
I can never claim to be a clean freak myself but I can honestly say that some people truly live in conditions a pig would run away from.
I will be very interesting to see what changes you made to this.
That is SO sad(and gross) but honestly just sad! I wonder what makes people feel like they don’t deserve to live in a nicer place and treat themselves like they do by keeping their home livable. Ya know what I mean!?