The Beginning

When we purchased The Hirsch House in Tucson, AZ the kitchen was a sad little space in between the original house (built in 1949) and the addition (built in the 60s). The opening from the kitchen into the dining room had a sliding "pocket door" that would close the room off. The kitchen had its own little water heater placed under the kitchen counter, its own swamp cooler (not working), and a very unfortunate tile counter made from the same tile as the floor. There was also a washer and dryer hookup and a very cool metal cabinet housing a mini clothes-drying rack and ironing board (we moved this into the laundry room we made in one of the spare bathrooms). We could never figure out how to turn on the overhead flourescent lights (shop lights, yuck!) because the wiring in the kitchen was so poorly installed and was all mixed up with outlets in the addition. We put up with inadequate lighting for a long time as we pondered what to do with the ceiling and cabinets.

The First Stage of Kitchen Re-Design

We decided to do some preliminary updating even though we were uncertain about what to do with the kitchen cabinets and electrical challenges. Fortunately, my husband is incredibly talented in all aspects of home renovation. We could never, ever afford to hire someone to do this project for us. There are simply too many challenges involved that require a lot of attention to detail, creativity, talent, and a willingness to do the work correctly, in spite of the time involved. We began the project by knocking out the wall between the kitchen and dining room. We discovered that one of the posts was load bearing so we had to leave it. Then we removed the "unfortunate" tile counter and replaced it with black granite tile. We couldn't afford a custom solid-granite countertop because we wanted the counter to extend into the dining room. We removed the water heater and installed an "on-demand" water heater. Laminate wood flooring replaced the pink tile. I'm not totally pleased with the laminate flooring. It's hard to clean and not very durable. This may become another project in the future. We had to replace some of the metal cabinets with cheap wood cabinets due to some damage during removal but since we knew we'd eventually be replacing the cabinets we decided we could live with them for a while. We also built some cabinets under the countertop on the dining room side that we will use for storage. We have yet to install doors on these cabinets.

New Cabinets - The decision is made

We finally decided to replace the kitchen cabinets. Even though the original cabinets were St. Charles cabinets, which are supposed to be of good quality and appropriate for the period of the house, I felt they were rather flimsy, ugly, and didn't have the features that made them functional in an active kitchen. We tossed around several options, including custom cabinets, Ikea cabinets, and replacing the doors to the existing cabinets. Our nephew finally suggested that we start hunting for some "demo" cabinets at cabinet supply stores around town. I gave him a very comprehensive list of the features that I needed in new cabinets and he started the search. The first shop he entered, Southwest Kitchen and Bath, had exactly what I was looking for. The cabinets are deep red and made by Kraftmade. They are spectacular. The line was being discontinued so the owners of the store were going to remove and replace them with a new display. Our nephew told them of our very strict and very low budget and the owners agreed to our limits. They even included an amazing solid black countertop. We're not sure what we'll do with the countertop since we already have one but there are some options for adding a piece of it here and there. My husband replaced the lighting in the kitchen and fussed around with the wiring until he could make it work. He was almost electrocuted after he thought he'd turned off everything at the breaker and discovered that one outlet was hooked up to a completely separate breaker in another part of the house. Yikes! Here are some photos of the new lighting and the insulation that was added above the refrigerator.

First Step - Remove Cabinets at SW Kitchen

Our nephew decided that he wanted to remove the cabinets at Southwest Kitchen and Bath to be sure they were treated gently so my husband and he spent a day cleaning out the drawers and cabinets, removing and transporting them, and cleaning up after themselves.

Wall Cabinets

After spending several days prepping the walls, installing insulation and sheetrock, and performing some miscellaneous "pre-cabinet" tasks, the wall cabinets are installed. We also created a little appliance center next to the refrigerator where I'll put store appliances such as my stand mixer, food processor, and coffee maker. Since the cabinets were a display model there were several interesting options included such as an "appliance garage". I'm happy to be able to hide some of the larger, stand-alone appliances when they are not being used. We plan to add another upper cabinet to the right of the appliance garage. One of the drawers on the right of the appliance center has a metal bread box with a sliding top door. Did I mention how much we love the range hood? We were planning on using the old, retro ceiling fan that was original to the kitchen but when we saw this cool hood we decided it was perfect for our new kitchen. It has all sorts of interesting control buttons. I'm afraid if I get too close to the fan I'll be sucked into the exhaust and spit out on the roof. It's pretty impressive.

The New Kitchen Floor

What were we thinking? When we started our first kitchen-redo we put down a very cheap laminate wood floor. We liked the dark color but we found that it was very hard to clean. Every product I tried on the floor, including plain water, would leave streaks and spots. In desperation I researched how to clean laminate wood floors on the Internet and found a weird solution. The product is called Windex! That's right! After totally cleaning the floor with whatever product I was using at the time I had to squirt Windex on the floor and mop it in to remove the streaks. This was only the first in a string of things we didn't like about this floor. We also found that it was starting to buckle, ever so slightly at the vertical seams and we kept noticing little scratches and divits that we couldn't explain. We chalk it up to "You get what you pay for!" So, while we are replacing the cabinets and lighting, and painting the walls and ceiling we decided that if we want to replace the floor, now is the perfect time. Once again we are living without a sink, stove, and dishwasher. Here are some photos of the removal.

The Choice of Flooring

When choosing flooring we had two requirements. First, we needed to be very conscious of our limited budget. Second, we REALLY didn't want to remove the old ceramic tile that was underneath the cheap laminate. This would have required a significant amount of work, more mess, and more time without our appliances. Our nephew, who is in charge of this project, is only here during the week so we didn't want to add another project to his list. We went to Lumber Liquidators with one of the cabinet doors and found several possible choices. The one we almost chose was of good quality and very similar in appearance to the first laminate we had used. I had been looking at vinyl tiles in black and grey and had wanted to create a sort of "retro" pattern but we decided that this would have required us to remove the ceramic tile. Although I thought our first choice would have been nice it just didn't seem to have that "edge" to the design that I had hoped for. Right before we headed to the counter to pay for the product our nephew's young friend brought over another sample that had originally caught our eye but that we had forgotten about. After a little debate that included an elderly stranger who was shopping for his own flooring we decided that this new choice was perfect and would add a significant "groove factor" to our retro kitchen. It's made by Kensington Manor and the color is Tanzanian Wenge. It's much thicker than the cheap laminate and the salesperson says that, although it has a 30 year warranty, we shouldn't ever need to replace it unless some environmental catastrophy should occur. It is very dark, almost black, and has grey stripes in it. We LOVE it! Check out the photos.