Turquoise Kitchen Remodel- Part 1: Before Pictures

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Follow along as Hello Creative Family’s 80’s kitchen goes from drab to fab. This townhouse kitchen remodel turned out amazing.

Thank you to Sunrise Kitchens, Blanco and Sherwin-Williams for sponsoring parts of our kitchen remodel. All thoughts and opinions are our own.

Table of Contents

I have a new love… and it is my kitchen! No the pictures in this post are not of my new kitchen. They are the before’s, stick around for the afters! But before we get to that, let me tell you a bit of a backstory.

When we purchased our home, it was a bit of a love hate relationship.

Things we loved:

The floor plan- Our home has two living rooms, a kitchen dining room and a formal dining room which in townhouses in Vancouver is unheard of. My husband has a shop in the garage, I have a living room set up as my office/craft room, and we are in the process of converting the formal dining room into a hangout space for the kids.
The size- Most townhouses in the Vancouver area are in the 1300 square foot range. If you get a 1500 square foot townhouse that’s incredible. Our townhouse was built almost 30 years ago when they built things bigger so our townhouse is 2000 square feet.
The community- Our previous home was only a 5 minute drive away, but moving to our new home meant we were in a different city, different school district, and 3 doors away from where my kids went to daycare/ before and after school care.
The location- We live right smack dab next to our elementary school which is so nice for so many reasons.

Things we hated:

The age and the condition- Really there was only one thing that we hated about our townhouse but it encompassed a lot of things. Remember how above I told you that we got more square footage because of the age of our townhouse? Well an older townhouse also means more wear and tear– and in our home’s case that meant a lot of wear and tear. Especially in the kitchen.

I’ve always considered the kitchen to be the heart of the home. I have one friend in particular who’s home epitomizes that saying. She has an older home, that she and her husband gutted a good chunk of the house and remodeled it. My friend loves to entertain and her main living space is the perfect place to do it. Her home feels so good, and you’ll often find people hanging out there. The kitchen flows into the dining room, which flows into the living room and when there are guests over you’ll often find the women hanging out at the island nibbling on snacks or drinking wine or at the dining room table playing “heads up” while the guys watch a game in the living room. Everyone is near each other hanging out but there is enough room and flow for different groups to form.

We moved into our townhouse 2 weeks before my due date with my son. Just before I signed my name on the sales contract I looked at my husband and said “We’re going to renovate the kitchen right?” And that was the plan, but then kids, life, daycare costs, other expenses… and before you know it 7 years has passed!

I love having friends and family in our house, but I started to avoid entertaining because I hated our kitchen so much. The cupboards were chipped and the hinges were loose so the doors hung crooked. The laminate countertops had slices in them made from knives from previous owners. The lighting was horrible and my husband and I often got in arguments because he was always switching off the overhead fluorescent lighting that he hated, but I couldn’t see well enough to be chopping vegetables with just the kitchen dining room light on.

My home definitely wasn’t pinterest worthy, but I wanted it to be so badly.

Then came the fall of 2018. My husband was home from work and I was in my office scrolling through photos on Facebook of the epic trip that a friend took for her 40th birthday. It suddenly hit me what the perfect way to celebrate my husband and my big occasion would be.

I called my husband into my office.

“Hey babe! Come look at these photos from Tina’s 40th birthday vacation.”

He walked into my office and hovered over my shoulder as I clicked through the photos.

“We both have our 40th birthdays next summer,” I said to him as I hearted one of Tina’s photos. “What do you think. Should we take a big trip too?”

“Yeah, that would be great. We should definitely do something to celebrate,” said The Hubs.

“Or another thought,” I interjected. “We could take the money that we would spend on such a big and luxurious trip and spend it on a kitchen renovation instead! Then the money would be spent on something we would use every single day for the next 20 years or so!”

“That’s definitely a thought,” said The Hubs… and that’s how our epic turquoise kitchen remodel began!

My dad is a builder and The Hubs loves a good DIY projects so we decided to do the kitchen renovation ourselves, subbing out the things that we required an expert for like cabinets and countertop installation, gas, plumbing and electrical.