Our Kitchen Renovation: Progress Report #1

Many thanks to our sponsors in this kitchen renovation: KitchenAid Appliances, MasterBrand Cabinets, Polycor, Fireclay Tile, Delta Faucets, Sinkology, & Rejuvenation. All opinions are my own and always will be! Thanks for supporting the content that keeps Jojotastic going.

Even though I live with it every day (and complain about it just as frequently on Instagram Stories), I feel like you guys are owed a full progress report about our kitchen renovation! Truthfully, the construction has slowed down a bit as we wait for key elements to arrive. Can you believe that my goal was to reveal the new kitchen on November 14? Yeah, that’s definitely not going to happen as you’ll see in all of these photos. I’ve learned so much during this process, though… maybe our next renovation will be on time? This post isn’t the most glamorous, but I couldn’t help myself. You all have been such a big part of this project, especially on Instagram, that I wanted to give you a peek at what the status is.

Our Kitchen Renovation: Progress Report #1

Most of why this has taken as long as it has is because of how crooked and old our house is! I knew that our floors were uneven and not super level, but I didn’t realize just how uneven they were. Sort of like Stockholm syndrome, but with flooring. Because our Fireclay Chaine Homme Tile is so special and so intricate, it is crucial that the floor be even and level. Our contractor has spent countless hours in the crawlspace ensuring such and it’s all going to be so worth it because our tile is absolutely unbelievable.

This shot helps to show a lot of the change we’ve made. You can see where we removed the wall separating the dining room from the kitchen and shortened the wall to the right. Also, you can see the new wall we built forward (on the left) so that we could put in the house’s first real closet!

And that’s the closet! One of my next projects is to figure out how I want to lay out the closet and which fixtures we want to use. I’m leaning toward the elfa system from The Container Store because it worked so well for us in the bedroom.

This area still needs a bit of work, mostly bringing the floor up to the same level as the rest of the kitchen. The right side of this is where our refrigerator will be located. Then a pantry will be installed across from that.

And of course paint… when we drywalled over the existing dining room wall, I had to say goodbye to the blue accent wall. But that means now there’s an opportunity to switch it up! A lot of the swatches I tried made the tile skew too purple, so Sarah, aka Room for Tuesday, sent me these 5 Sherwin-Williams swatches to check out. I have my favorite already so you’ll just have to wait and see which I choose!

Tasks to be Completed (in no particular order!):

• finish electrical
• install can lighting in ceiling and other lighting
• select cabinet hardware
• install cabinetry
• install flooring
• install countertops and backsplash
• hang open shelving
• plan out the interior of the closet
• paint

So, as you can see, just a short list… but I’ve been promised that our kitchen renovation will be complete by Christmas. Fingers crossed because that would be an excellent holiday gift!

In case you missed in, you can read more about our kitchen renovation + these posts might interest you:

• The Before Photos + Our Kitchen Renovation Kick Off
• Our Demo Day Video
• Material Selections
• How to Shop for New Appliances

photography by Jojotastic.