Friday Faves...Updating our 1990's kitchen

I've missed posting my Friday Favs! I think at one time my blog was the boss of me. I posted practically everyday! Then somehow it changed and life and busyness became the boss of me and I've struggled to find time to blog. I'm hoping to get back into some sort of a more realistic blogging rhythm without either the blog or out of control busyness taking over my life.

Two years ago this month we moved into our new to us home.  It was built in 1992.  Since moving in we've made a lot of updates and changes, but the biggest change happened this summer when we updated our 1990's kitchen. Here's a before photo.  Behold my kitchen in all of it's nineties golden oak glory!

Let me begin by telling you what we decided not to change.  We decided not to change the footprint of the kitchen.  The layout works really well for us and so we decided to keep it the same.  We also decided not to replace the oak cabinets.  The cabinets are solid wood, including the shelves.  We decided that we would rather figure out a way to update our solid wood cabinets because to replace them with equal quality solid hardwood would be out of our price range.

Here's what we did change. We replaced the formica countertops and their oak trim with solid surface quartz countertops.  We shopped around for the best price and were so very pleased with the company that we chose. We chose MSI quartz in the color fossil gray.  It looks a lot like concrete countertops, which I love. We deepened the width of the bar area just slightly and changed the previous angle cuts a bit.  We also replaced the sink with a high quality stainless steel undermount sink that we ordered from Amazon.

After debating how to update our cabinets, we decided to have them professionally painted. Our friends at Divine Concepts, LLC did a fabulous job! 

We also decided to replace the wood centers of some of the top cabinets with textured glass.  I chose quarter reeded glass which is slightly opaque.  Our good friend removed the wood centers and put the glass in for us, which we ordered from a local glass company.

We also added new hardware on all of the cabinet doors and drawers.  Previously the cabinets had no door or drawer pulls on them.  We ordered the drawer pulls and new hinges through Amazon.  Our same friend and his wife helped install all the hardware. 

For the backsplash I went with 4x12 white subway tile with gray grout that matches the countertop color.  I wanted something simple and clean looking without a lot of pattern.  I didn't want my kitchen to look too "busy" to the eye, but simple and clean.  My nephew and those same friends previously mentioned, (which happen to be my nephew's in-laws as well as our dear friends), helped install the backsplash.

The last update to the kitchen was to replace the can light over the kitchen sink with a pendant light that matches the sconces we have in our dining room.

I couldn't be more pleased with how our kitchen turned out!  It's always gratifying when something turns out the way you've pictured it in your mind!

 It's almost Friday, friends!

Have a HAPPY, HAPPY Friday

and a safe and BLESSED weekend!