Short Term Kitchen Update: Goodbye Pelmet and Backsplash, Hello Recessed Lighting and Updated Electrical

What we've been up to the past few weeks, working on our short-term kitchen update!

First, we took down the 1970s scalloped pelmet above the sink, and the crown moulding that ran in front of it.

And revealed the lovely bare bulb light fixture, and some rogue popcorn that we neglected to scrape when we did the rest of the kitchen ceiling.

Both of which were promptly removed.

Project Plans: Short-Term Kitchen Update

After a nice break for the holidays, and to recover from our mad scramble to get the dining room ready to host Christmas dinner, it's time to jump into the next house project: the kitchen.

In all of its wood paneled, dated tile floor, sometimes grey/sometimes pinky-beige counters (depending on the lighting), cream colored faux brick backsplash (with cracked grout due to it being installed incorrectly), and spaceship looking florescent lighting glory, I've gotten tired of looking at it from the family room.

We haven't really done much of anything in here yet, except on our first day in the house when we removed the bank of cabinets above the peninsula to open up the space to the breakfast nook and family room, and when I made over the pantry. The above photo was taken last March, and since then all we have done is get new bar stools for the nook.

Eventually we plan to gut the whole kitchen and re-do it all, like we did to the downstairs bathroom. In fact, my husband was ready right now to jump in and just get started with the full kitchen renovation. However, I talked him into a short term update for now, that will get the kitchen to a more tolerable state for not a lot of money, and hold off on the complete gut for 4-5 years.

I know, that doesn't sound like me at all, does it? Being responsible and not jumping to spend money on home projects! Is there something wrong with me??

But I've got a few good reasons to wait on the full kitchen gut job. First, because I think I can build new cabinets, now that I've gotten into furniture building. I really enjoyed building our dining room table and coffee table, and have learned a lot. But I don't think I'm ready yet to take on a whole kitchen worth of cabinets, and I would like some more practice first. But in the long run, this will save us considerable money if we can DIY all new cabinets. My second reason is that our existing appliances aren't in horrible shape. In fact, our dishwasher is only a couple years old, but of course, isn't the color we would choose for ourselves. So it seems like a bit of a waste to me to trash (or list on Craigslist for cheap) them just yet, when we've definitely got a few more good years in them. And my final reason, and probably the most important, is that I'm not yet set on the final configuration of the kitchen. To me, the kitchen is the most intricate and important room in our house to organize and renovate it just right for our needs. And considering I've only been an actual cooking adult for a little over a year (prior to that I was only a pro at sticking frozen meals in the oven!), I don't yet feel ready to settle on a new kitchen layout. It was as recent as cooking during Christmas, my first attempt to cook elaborate meals for 8-9 people, that I had new thoughts on how I'd change something in the current kitchen set up. So it makes sense to wait a bit longer to make these decisions, and make sure we're incorporating everything we could ever want into a new kitchen.

So for now, we're just doing a few small, budget-friendly updates to make us happier with the room until we're ready to do the complete update. I present to you, my quickly Photoshopped plan: