Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

I’m so glad you guys like the way the flip turned out!  It’s so much fun to see all of our hard work pay off – actually, I guess it hasn’t really paid off since we still own it, but you know what I mean.  :)

I thought we’d start this little before and after tour with the kitchen and dining room, since the kitchen was by far the most heinous part of the house when we bought it back in the beginning of June.

Not only was it not my cup of tea (pea green laminate counters, anyone?) but it was hugely lacking in functionality with a distracting and view-blocking range hood and an awkward angled peninsula.

Remember?

Take a "Before" Tour of Our Third Flip

Well, we tackled those challenges with a switched up floor plan – and here’s how it looks now!

The Flip is For Sale

( Courtesy of Lance Hames Photography )

In addition to improving functionality, our goal was to lighten and brighten this kitchen and give it a classic feel that will stand the test of time.

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

See what I mean about that crazy range hood?  Not only could you hit your head on it but it was blocking all the natural light from the window (as well as obstructing the sight lines throughout the kitchen).

Take a "Before" Tour of Our Third Flip

By the way – see those leaded glass panels in the built-in hutch and on either side of the kitchen window?  My mom made those!  She’s the coolest mom ever (and I’m not just saying that so she’ll keep outfitting our flips with awesome panels).

The Flip is For Sale

( Courtesy of Lance Hames Photography )

Take a "Before" Tour of Our Third Flip

As you can see, we moved the fridge over to the other side of the room so that we could fit bar stools at the island.

The Flip is For Sale

( Courtesy of Lance Hames Photography )

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

This was our first time using carrera marble counters instead of granite, and I’m totally sold.  Love it!

Take a "Before" Tour of Our Third Flip

The Flip is For Sale

( Courtesy of Lance Hames Photography )

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

This is where I became a little obsessed with photographing the tile and flowers.  My apologies.

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

Take a "Before" Tour of Our Third Flip

We also moved the door a few feet down to the left so that we could have an uninterrupted L-shaped counter rather than having the range shoved in the corner.

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

I will definitely be using this herringbone pattern and gray grout again!  I kinda love it.

Take a "Before" Tour of Our Third Flip

There’s that crazy peninsula I was telling you about – isn’t it better with it gone?

The Flip is For Sale

( Courtesy of Lance Hames Photography )

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

The built-ins look so much better after a coat of dark brown paint and new cabinet fronts (those swoopy details were pretty dated).  And another shout out for my mom’s handiwork!

The Flip is For Sale

( Courtesy of Lance Hames Photography )

Even though it’s not a true “open kitchen,” I think that the connection between the kitchen, dining and family room will work really great for the new family that buys this house.

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

( I wasn’t going to post a photo with all of the previous owner’s stuff in the house but this was the only “before” photo I had going this direction. Please excuse all of the moving day craziness. )

The Flip is For Sale

( Courtesy of Lance Hames Photography )

Before & After: The Kitchen & Dining Room

And that’s it!  This is my dad’s favorite flip that we’ve done so far – what about you?  You can check out our other flips here.

All photographs taken by me, unless indicated as “Courtesy of Lance Hames Photography.”

The Glass Fairy

Have I ever told you guys that my mom totally rocks?  And that she’s super talented?  And that she moonlights as a glass fairy?

Well, you don’t have to take my word for it – just take a look at how she transformed the simple hutch in our breakfast room from this:

The Glass Fairy

into this stunner of a showpiece:

The Glass Fairy

See?  I told you she was amazing!  She put away her glass tools about 25 years ago and decided to bust them out of hibernation to spiff up our hutch – and we knew the end result would be gorgeous, since her handiwork is all over my parents’ house, from the windows in the front of the house to the china cabinet to an awesome glass coffee table.

But back to our little hutch.  The first step in taking our glass panels from plain glass to snazzy leaded glass was to tape our pattern onto the panels like this:

The Glass Fairy

That way we could make sure that we liked the pattern and that everything would line up just so.  Then Mom whisked away the plain glass panels to her workshop (i.e., my sister’s old bedroom) and worked her leaded glass magic, which included things like cutting glass, stretching lead, and soldering everything together.

Pretty soon Mom had created 8 custom panels that looked like this:

The Glass Fairy

Love those diamond shaped bevels!!  If you look closely, you can see numbers and arrows drawn onto each of the individual pieces of glass – since there were four different sizes of panels for the hutch, Mom used this system to make sure that none of the pieces got switched around (which would have made the panels totally wonky):

The Glass Fairy

After Mom dry-fitted each one of the panels, she dabbed a little clear silicone into each of the corners and the middle of the panels and then tapped them into place:

The Glass Fairy

To keep the panels from getting frisky while the silicone was drying, she used tiny nails to hold them in place along with some serious clamps (that you can see in the picture above).

The Glass Fairy

So what do you guys think of the transformation?  Isn’t my mom the coolest??  And in addition to being cool, she’s also totally generous – now she’s working on a few pieces for my craft room!  Am I a lucky duck, or what??

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