Our Renovation Experiences
Mountain Minion Momma’s Kitchen
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Everyone has a dream kitchen in mind. They look at what they have, and see what does work, what doesn’t work, and what just needs a little tweaking to make it better.
On Momma’s kitchen, she had many things that she mentioned over the years that she would love to fix or change.
First was the layout. The refrigerator was located directly behind the door. Normally this wouldn’t be a big problem, but her new stainless-steel door has the scars to prove that it was less than ideal.
Second, there were many cabinets, but they were not as useful as she needed, and it was sometimes inconvenient to find what she needed. One was the lower cabinet to the right of the sink. We watched her empty this cabinet and almost crawl back inside it to get the lesser used small appliances every year. The door was tiny and hard for her to get access to the back of that cabinet as well.
Thirdly, she didn’t like the large gap between the upper cabinets and the ceiling, and it was so dark in the kitchen. The cabinets were dark, the floor was dark, and it would soak up the light in the room.
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After many weeks of contemplating, we came up with a plan. We would move the refrigerator from behind the door to its new home just on the other side of the range. As a result, we changed the lower cabinets and made the corner cabinet’s door larger.
To fix the issue of accessibility, we installed pull out shelves in all the cabinets. Even though she gets around well for now, we wanted to make sure that the kitchen would be easy for her to use well in to great-great-grandchildren years. We even made her a spice rack in the cabinet between the stove and sink that holds all of her many, MANY, many seasonings. As we were planning, we also made sure that she could comfortably reach the upper shelves in the upper cabinets.
After several weeks of building and finishing the cabinets, it was time to get started. We tore out all the cabinets that were in the kitchen, ran new wiring for a few new outlets, primed and painted the walls and ceiling, and laid new linoleum flooring. We also installed all new lighting, outlets, and switches. Our canvas was now prepped and ready to be put back together.
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About halfway through installing the new cabinets, our Mountain Minion had to go back to working 6 days a week. The women folk had to continue working as much as they could without him. But they got ideas of their own. This is where the idea of Momma’s “Coffee Bar” was born.
Momma had asked for more storage. She used to use pantry cabinets you can buy at almost any big box store to put her can and box food in for easy access. Mrs. Minion (aka Gru lol) didn’t like the idea of putting in the new beautiful custom cabinets and all the new beautiful counters just to throw the old pantry cabinets back in there. It would have been a shame. So, she figured, “While we are at it anyway, why not?”
She come up with a plan for cabinets that were only 13 inches deep to line the wall where the old pantry cabinets used to be. They wouldn’t take up any more space than the old cabinets, but she could provide about 7 feet more of counter space! Win-win! When Momma saw her idea, she was ecstatic. Momma already knew exactly what she wanted to put there. She wanted her very own COFFEE BAR!
We tore out all the cabinets that were in the kitchen, ran new wiring for a few new outlets, primed and painted the walls and ceiling, and laid new linoleum flooring. We also installed all new lighting, outlets, and switches. Our canvas was now prepped and ready to be put back together.
So, while the Minion was working his regular job, Momma and the Mrs. put their plan in to action. Of course, Mr. Minion was more than onboard with the plan. What Momma wanted, he wanted to give her.
It took more than 2 months to get the kitchen to the condition that you see in the photos above. Because of a few hiccups along the way, we weren’t able to completely finish before Christmas. Momma is settled in now and has moved everything around her new kitchen multiple times. She is still enjoying her “nesting” phase.
When the newest pictures were taken, the project was not yet complete. We plan to go back and get a video and link it here for you to see.
It truly turned out very nice. We even have trouble believing that we did it all from our little shop out in the sticks and that it was our first time.
Everything in the kitchen was redone. From the flooring to the lighting, and we even painted and put in a few new power outlets.