Oh haaaay. I am finally showing you the before and afters of our kitchen remodel! Woohoo.

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

You guys! This might be my most requested post ever.

I go into a little bit of detail in the post, but you can see from the pictures that while the layout is the same, there are some big changes.

And this is the first of a few posts to come, so leave any questions below! I’ll be going in up close and personal about the appliances I chose and doing some video walk throughs in the coming months! 

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

For a few months, we entertained the idea of taking down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room (the wall on the left side in the photos above) and almost decided to do it. It would have given us so many more options for things we wanted (and when I say “we,” I really just mean me because Eddie could care less about the kitchen and just wants to make sure he can grill a burger, truly), but ultimately we knew that no matter what, it wouldn’t be my dream space. I was super pregnant when we moved in here and while I really love our house, I have no idea how I overlooked some important kitchen details. Maybe I just loved the rest of the house more! I chalk it up to crazy pregnancy hormones and book-release date hormones.

We also figured that putting that much money into the kitchen is something we wouldn’t get back any time soon (it seriously required restructuring a lot of the house) and we don’t know if we will stay here. So we decided to work within the kitchen skeleton that we had and I’m really glad that we did.

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

A few reasons why we wanted to change things:

The darkness. I don’t even feel like these pictures do justice for just how DARK this kitchen was. I swear it took a toll on our moods, haha. The gloom and doom shade on the walls (which you are probably familiar with if you watched my vlogs before Christmas) coupled with there being NO natural light in the kitchen and with the darker cabinets and counters made the area so, so, SO dark.

Like, I’m not talking about dark for my photography. I still don’t photograph things in my kitchen, nor could I ever, because there is no natural light and unless we chop off the top of our house and install skylights, it isn’t possible.

But just LIVING in this space with so much darkness was crazy. Eddie also LOATHED the pendant lights above the bar area and hated having them on – like they almost hurt his eyes. So at times, it would be even darker!

The two-tiered counter. This was so useless for us. It lessened the counter space, made it so impossible to entertain and cut the room in half. It appeared that we had a lot of counter space, but it wasn’t utilized well. It was all choppy. I’m so short that I could barely set large pots on that top level. The countertops were also different shades and super dark. Not that I’d never choose dark finished or counters – I actually don’t mind them. But these were so warm and dark. I live for cool tones.

And most importantly, I wanted a space to be able to shoot videos and do projects that required me IN the kitchen. Spoiler alert: I did this last Friday. (!!!!!!!) That was impossible before. I have no desire or plans to have a studio kitchen and wanted to make a space I loved workable and enjoyable!

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

The main thing I wanted was lighter cabinets, a one-level center island and a cooktop in the center.

Yes, I am in the camp that wants an all-white kitchen. I always have. Even before pinterest existed! Going full blown white wasn’t really an option here unless we want to redo a lot of other things in our home, so we went with this color call chai. Makes me want to eat the cabinets. CHAI LATTE yes please. It’s a taupe-y shade.

And obviously, a change of paint color! I believe the color on the walls now is called west highland white.

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

(I had a ton of trouble trying to capture this entire island with my lens! Going to get a wide angle one for better pics and videos of the kitchen soon. This one above is just with my phone.)

So, we moved most of the appliances to the opposite side of the island and put the cooktop in the center. This cooktop is AMAZING. Holy cow. It boils water in moments. I’m going to give you a really in depth look at the appliances in a few weeks! I did partner with KitchenAid for my appliances and let me tell you… after having years of subpar appliances, these are insane. I knew I wanted to go with KitchenAid because my cousin Lacy’s condo was done entirely in KitchenAid appliances and I’ve been obsessed for years. I can’t even take how much I love them.

The bar stools are from Wayfair and are called the Ocean City Swivel. I love that they swivel the entire way around! Wayfair graciously sent these to me to have in our kitchen.

Having the counter down to one level has opened up this room SO much. Our entire bottom floor is an open plan and it’s so much brighter, lighter and airy. We love it! Everyone who comes in is like “oh my gosh, this looks so much brighter and bigger!”

kitchen remodel: before and after I howsweeteats.com

And that’s that! I think with remodeling there are always pros and cons since you are working with the space you have. We are NOT remodeling people and I doubt we will ever remodel anything ever again while living it, but I am loving this space now for entertaining and sharing! The mood in our kitchen is so much happier now. xo

[special thanks to KitchenAid for partnering with me for appliances! I can’t wait to tell you more about them because they are changing my LIFE. and thanks to Wayfair for partnering us with us for the barstools!]