For those of you that follow along with us, you already know that we’ve been in the middle of kitchen planning, designing, and installing on a kitchen in another state. I am in North Carolina and the kitchen that I designed for my mom’s forever home is in Vermont. Luckily for me, my sister and brother (who is our “contractor” and carpenter) are in Vermont and have done almost all of the heavy lifting themselves. My sister, who owns the home, has painted more than she ever wanted to paint in her life.
When we began talking about this project (when the property that adjoined my sister’s farm came up for sale), I think it was sometime around February (2020). When we started actually planning it, the idea was for my brother to have everything ready for me and my husband to drive up and help with the installation (especially because he thinks some of the design choices I made are a major pain in the butt). But, then this weird thing happened: a pandemic. Our trip obviously got delayed. But, on the positive side, my sister and brother were able to continue working on the rehab and the kitchen just about full time since everything was closed due to Covid.
Sneak Peek (the AFTER):
*This post may contain affiliate links and is sponsored by Lily Ann Cabinets. Please see full disclosure at the end of the post.
The Before
I was able to get a decent idea of the space from talking to my sister and lots of pictures and video chatting. I came up with a preliminary design that would save her time and money by leveraging the existing layout. We agreed it would be a nice kitchen.
In addition to detailed wall measurements, locations of lights, switches, plumbing, etc, I was working from the following before pictures:
The Design Style
I talked to my sister at length about the intended style of the house (she was doing a complete renovation, not just the kitchen). The house was, at the time of purchase, sort of a bad mid-century look. We agreed that “Vermont Cottage” was a good style to strive for, throwing in some modern conveniences, and some new cabinetry. Trying to save her money on the reno, I had suggested we try to paint and re-use some of the cabinets, but it would not have been as polished of an end look.
Now, I am absolutely an advocate of reusing what you can in a kitchen. If your kitchen is solid but just needs a facelift, we have a great post on The Best Ways To Transform An Outdated Kitchen On A Tiny Budget.
However, if it’s a total tear down, I have some great tips to save you money. The main component of a kitchen remodel is the cabinetry. There are so many cabinet options and they can run from $100 each to thousands of dollars each.
Thousands of dollars. “For a CABINET???” you ask. Oh yes, for a cabinet.
Anyway, here is the original “Vermont Cottage” mood board that I made for my mom’s forever kitchen to give my sister an idea of how I wanted the finished space to feel. You may notice that it has some polished elements, some rustic elements, and some commercial/industrial level elements also.
For my mom and her husband, we had some specific design considerations on top of the usual desire to create a timeless kitchen:
- Her husband cooks greasy steaks on high heat almost daily: Although a dedicated hood was not in the budget, we chose a microwave that was capable of venting to the outside. We also planned a stainless steel sheet as a stove backsplash to make clean-up easier.
- Her husband is a mechanic: If any of you have a mechanic in your house, you know that black fingerprints are a fact of life. We chose dark stainless for the appliances and beefy black hardware to minimize smudges.
My preliminary design had options to use the existing layout and cabinets, add some cabinets and move the sink under the window, and to add some cabinets and bridge shelves from IKEA to the wall that was blank in the kitchen. This design was the most budget friendly.
Then my sister brought my brother in to look at the space before we agreed on a design. He said, “let’s open it up.” Read: please scrap your entire layout. We’re doing this differently.
The problem was: inbetween the closed off kitchen and living room were two walls and a staircase that went to the basement. Apparently, for carpenters that wear superman capes, this is a non-issue. He informed us he was going to move the staircase to the other end of the living room, frame the hole in, build a new staircase with kneewall, and we would have one BIG, FANTASTIC, open living space.
So, I revised my plan, which doubled the cabinet space we would have in the kitchen, plus the overall aesthetic was going to be awesome!
The Design Plan
I got out my graph paper (yes, I am old school and I still use graph paper for my designs) and was back to the old drawing board. I put my wall measurements and locations of fixtures, etc (including appliance measurements) down onto graph paper and then proceeded to start filling in standard size (non-custom) cabinet sizes to see how much of the space I could use. It turns out, I was able to use almost every inch of the back wall and create a nice big kitchen.
While I was designing I was also researching pricing for cabinets. YIKES. There are a lot of options, and some of them, even their off the shelf prices (non-custom cabinets) are pricey. I’m always trying to find a good deal, especially when I’m spending someone else’s money. I found a company that was running a sale that has good reviews and had a cabinet style I liked. They also offered design services, so I figured getting a pro to look at my design couldn’t hurt, and I was curious to see what they would come up with.
This is what I sent them (I also told the designer we wanted to do an island with four base cabinets on each side):
Fancy, right? Ha.
Tip: You don’t need anything near as detailed as what I sent to the cabinet company. You can send them basic wall dimensions with locations of outlets, plumbing and light fixtures, and doors and windows, and they will design the kitchen for you!
Well, this is what they sent me back (and why we ultimately went with the company):
I was super impressed with the designer’s knowledge, and they have a whole tech team dedicated to rendering 3D images of your kitchen so you can easily visualize EXACTLY how it’s going to look.
I think it was about this time that I asked the company if they would like to sponsor our kitchen (we received a discount on the price of the cabinets), so we teamed up with Lily Ann Cabinets for the cabinets, and decided to go with RTA to save my sister some money on the ever-growing budget for the project. (Pssst, don’t tell them, but we were going to use them anyway because they were already the least expensive manufacturer I could find).
Ready to get started? My readers can use the code SDIY2018 at checkout to get 5% off your Lily Ann Cabinets order!
RTA cabinets are “ready to assemble” and my husband and I had previously installed some in our old kitchen, so the RTA thing didn’t scare me at all. My brother, on the other hand, flat refused to assemble them (and when he’s adamant I just go with it), and insisted we do it when we came for the kitchen install. We agreed and we moved forward with our planning.
Except, remember that whole COVID thing? The entire design and ordering process was accomplished by Lily Ann employees working from home, and the order assembled and shipped by a skeleton crew in their warehouse. Our planned working trip over the kids’ Spring Break was smack in the middle of the lockdown. And our ability to plan another trip was completely on hold with really no end in sight.
I sent the designer my sketch on Feb 28, 2020 and the cabinets were delivered April 14, 2020. The whole process, from starting the design to delivery of the cabinets, was less than seven weeks and that was during the pandemic lockdown.
Tip: Don’t hack up the old cabinets with a sledgehammer like the TV shows do. Why?
1) It’s super messy. Instead: you just need to remove a few screws to pop the whole thing off the wall.
2) You can either re-use the cabinets in your garage for extra storage or you can donate them to the Habitat For Humanity Re-store and get a donation slip from them that you can write off on your taxes (they’ll even come pick up your donations!).
Cabinet Assembly
By this time, the cabinets had been delivered and were sitting in a neatly packed palette in the garage. I think my brother started getting antsy, because he was going to put the flooring down after the cabinets went in, and we were still on a travel lockdown. So, suddenly I started getting pictures of cabinets going together and up against the wall.
I was a nervous wreck at first… I was holding my breath waiting for my brother to deliver the verdict that the cabinets were junk and were a nightmare to assemble. But, guess what? That didn’t happen. My brother, the wood snob/very talented carpenter was SUPER impressed with the quality craftsmanship and how easily the RTAs went together! I breathed a sigh of relief. Whew!
Not handy? It doesn’t even matter. Check out the following two videos from our build that show the complete assembly of an RTA cabinet box (which takes about 3 minutes total):
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww5rPkfC4bA&w=560&h=315]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS6nUGTuGbU&w=560&h=315]
Of course, after the RTA box is assembled, the doors and drawers are attached, which takes a few minutes longer, but is still very simple.
Is it really that simple?: Yes! Here are some more photos of the cabinet assembly:
Installation
My brother quickly assembled all of the cabinets and started installing them. He was able to do this without me there, because he had a detailed layout guide from Lily Ann. With exact measurements he was able to do the entire installation.
Remember these?
Following the detailed layout the designer provided: they started tying them into the walls and the kitchen was really starting to take shape!
Using the design, he had the electrician put in all new can lights, outlets, and receptacles for the other fixtures.
The Rest Of The Kitchen Installation
My sister immediately got going on painting in the main living spaces, including the kitchen. She very carefully covered the cabinets and went to work.
Later, the floors went down and lights went up. My brother also installed the decorative panels on the sides of the cabinets so that the countertop people could measure accurately.
Next, the countertops went in (except for the kitchen island, which my brother had wood curing for).
They were finally ready to bring the appliances up and it was amazing how it ALREADY looked, even though it wasn’t finished. And we had a little problem coming up… We were supposed to do the “reveal” on my mom’s birthday in July. But, we were still unable to travel north because of COVID.
So, my sister and brother did a mini-reveal to show her the progress, knowing that we would be up soon to finish the space that still needed: molding, an antique for a spice rack, the stove backsplash, the backsplash above the counter, the cabinet hardware, the hanging herb garden, and the open shelving to the left of the sink. But, the before was still pretty awesome and my mom was blown away. Here’s what it looked like on her reveal day with my brother’s custom island top he manufactured from wood on his property and his wood mill:
And who doesn’t love a good reveal video? Warning: it makes me weepy every time.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYK1UD7tQXY&w=560&h=315]
Want to see the whole reveal after we finished all of the projects (backsplash, hardware, open shelves, crown molding)? Check out our Before and After: Grandma’s New Vermont Cottage Kitchen.
What do you think? Would you use RTA cabinets for your renovation? Let us know in the comments below!
Ready to get started? My readers can use the code SDIY2018 at checkout to get 5% off your Lily Ann Cabinets order!
Thanks again to the team at Lily Ann Cabinets for making our build possible, to my sister, brother, and brother-in-law in Vermont for all of their hard work, and to my favorite Rainman for doing working vacations with me without a single complaint!
Cheers!
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