The Summer Our Kitchen Was the Basement

Our kitchen remodel was always supposed to be the first big project in this house. Instead, it waited patiently while we tackled other repairs, saved money, and made plans. Then COVID hit. Lockdowns started. Supply chains fell apart. We found out we were expecting our third baby. And just to round things out, our area was hit by a historic derecho.

Clearly, that was the perfect time to tear the kitchen down to the studs.

The Kitchen We Inherited

Before the remodel, our kitchen hadn’t been touched since the 1980s, and even then it was clear that some of the cabinets dated back to the 1950s.

We were working with:

Mismatched cabinet doors
No dishwasher (a big deal with kids)
Two different chicken wallpaper borders
A cramped U-shaped layout
A strange, intrusive wall with an awkward interior window that looked into the entryway

The kitchen wasn’t original to the house, and the wall they inserted made the space feel dark and chopped up. The kitchen functioned, but barely.

We made do with a countertop dishwasher, which worked… but it and the microwave took up precious counter space we couldn’t spare. It was clear that if we were going to invest in one space, this had to be it.

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1. Planning the New Kitchen

The first step was planning — and a lot of it.

We sat down and talked through what mattered most, then built everything else around those priorities. This stage also included creating a timeline and figuring out when everything needed to be ordered, which turned out to be especially important during COVID delays.

Our top priorities:

Lots of storage (I like to hoard things — no shame)
Removing the wall and adding an island
A full-size dishwasher (non-negotiable)

We worked with a local cabinet shop to custom order the cabinets for our space. We were able to incorporate two good sized pantry cabinets and opted for more drawers than cabinets on the bottom because they are a more efficient use of space for the things we’d be storing. We went with dark wood cabinets around the exterior of the room and stepped out of our comfort zone with a light blue island. With that in mind, we chose a light blue color for the wall and a slightly darker shade for the interior of the door. We decided to paint the doors and trim white to avoid the issue of trying to match the existing oak trim.

Our cabinet supplier let us borrow some samples and we laid out our final choices to view before making it official.

Because we wanted to remove a wall, we hired a structural engineer to determine whether it was load-bearing and what would be required to do it safely. That step gave us clarity — and peace of mind — before any demolition began.

Adding a dishwasher meant losing a potential cabinet, but this was well worth the tradeoff.

2. Prepping the House for Demo

Before tearing anything out, the oven and refrigerator were moved to the basement, where, along with our air fryer, we created a makeshift “kitchen” to get us through. Our side door entered into the kitchen so we were able to seal off the interior kitchen doorways with plastic.

This effectively cut off:

Our newly remodeled downstairs bathroom
Access to the basement from inside the house (and my temporary kitchen)

Kitchen in basement — I affectionately referred to this as my “dungeon kitchen.”

Not ideal — but temporary. At least that’s what we kept telling ourselves.

3. Demo Day(s)

My husband handled most of the demolition. We ordered a dumpster and took everything out down to the studs, including the ceiling. We saved some of the usable cabinets for garage and basement storage, but everything else had to go.

Meanwhile, I tackled the truly important job: removing bits of chicken border from the small section of drywall we weren’t ripping out. A satisfying farewell.

4. Installing the Beam

Once the wall came down, we installed a beam to properly support the structure. This was one of those moments where the house instantly felt different — more open, lighter, and finally like the kitchen was part of the home instead of boxed off from it.

5. Calling in the Pros (Plumbing + Electrical)

We decided to hire out plumbing and electrical — partly for safety, partly to take something off our plates during an already overwhelming season.

They:

Reworked plumbing and electrical in the kitchen
Ran hookups to the room above the kitchen, which we hope will someday become our master bathroom

Future-proofing felt like a win.

6. New Insulation

We replaced insulation in the exterior walls while everything was open. It’s not glamorous, but it made a noticeable difference and was absolutely worth doing while we had the chance.

Oh and remember those pipes we installed for the laundry room? They’d just been chilling in the corner waiting to be covered by our new pantry cabinet. We threw some insulation around them as well to help muffle any noise from the drain.

7. Drywall (Worth Every Penny)

This is a job that historically fell to me, mostly because it was something I had the time to learn how to do and execute, and it wasn’t dangerous so my husband trusted me to do it while he was off at work. Being pregnant made this decision easy: we hired drywallers, and I have zero regrets. After learning how tedious finishing drywall is from our bathroom remodel, I was more than ready to hire this out.

It sped things up, saved our sanity, and spared my body from something it had no business doing at that point.

Just look at those professionally feathered joints 😍.

8. New Subfloor

We laid new plywood subfloor, creating a solid foundation for everything that came next.

9. Painting the Big Surfaces

Before cabinets and floors went in, we painted:

The front door (Valspar Blue Arrow (interior) and Valspar Indigo Cloth (Exterior))
Sliding door that led to our sunroom
Ceiling
Walls (Valspar Northern Sky)

This timing made everything easier and cleaner.

10. Replacing the Window

We hired this out as well. The old window was inefficient and didn’t open easily, and the new one made a huge difference in both light and function. My husband had the idea of trimming the bottom of it with a board stained to match our cabinets and I love the finished look.

11. Cabinets + Farmhouse Sink

Cabinet installation and the farmhouse sink were also professionally installed.

This was one of the most exciting moments — finally seeing the kitchen take shape and feel real instead of theoretical.

This is also when we finally hid those unsightly laundry room pipes. Sometimes you have to get creative when updating old houses.

Here they are, hanging out in the garage, waiting to be installed!

12. Flooring

We installed the same LVP flooring we had already used throughout the rest of the first floor, which helped everything feel cohesive and intentional.

13. Painting Trim and Interior Doors

All trim and new interior doors were painted white. To make this manageable, we bought a paint sprayer, which saved an incredible amount of time and effort, and has since come in handy on lots of other projects.

14. Appliances (Thanks, COVID)

Appliance shopping during COVID was… an experience. In addition to being afraid to catch it while out looking at models, supply chain issues made things more difficult.

The dishwasher we wanted was unavailable, so we pivoted. We ended up with stainless steel appliances from mixed brands:

Gas range (GE)
Above-range microwave (GE)
French-door refrigerator with bottom freezer and ice maker (Frigidaire)
Dishwasher (Kitchenaid)

Not matching perfectly turned out to be just fine.

15. Countertops

Installing the countertops was another milestone — suddenly the kitchen felt usable again. These were installed by the company we ordered them from. We went with quartz from Silestone in Pietra. It was a neutral color with small hints of gray, blue, and gold and some sparkle thrown in. I still love it to this day.

16. Finishing Touches

The finishing touches went in: doors and knobs, hardware, faucet, light fixture, decor, and trim. Small details, but they made everything feel complete.

17. Backsplash

The backsplash was the final layer — the part that tied the whole space together and added personality to all the practical choices. We chose a white arabesque tile to fit with our modern farmhouse style.

A light gray grout made our tiles pop without being too distracting.

The Finish Line

We started our renovation in July and finished in October. Our baby was due in January, which meant we actually had a little time to breathe, nest, and enjoy the space before life got loud again. Considering my husband was working full time during this process, and some of the supply chain setbacks we had, I was very happy with our timeline overall.

Remodeling a kitchen during COVID, while pregnant and juggling two other kids, was anything but easy. In the middle of it all, our area was hit by a derecho that knocked out our power for three days and forced us to pause everything for storm cleanup. For months, getting to the fridge meant walking outside and down into the basement. We lived on frozen pizzas and paper plates and shared a barely functioning bathroom because our newly remodeled one was off-limits. Every spare moment was spent building, painting, planning — or thinking about the kitchen. Even so, it was worth it. The kitchen we ended up with fits the way we live now, not how someone lived here decades ago.

And every time I load the dishwasher, I’m reminded: some upgrades are truly life-changing.

Check out our final before and afters below!