Kitchen Reconfiguration with Existing Cabinets (November 2014)

My u-shaped kitchen configuration led to daily traffic jams. The opening to the cooking area, refrigerator and sink was maybe 3 feet wide, and with two 6 foot tall adults and kids darting around, someone was always getting bumped. To make matters worse, that small passageway aligned with the stairs leading downstairs. I felt that it was only a matter of time before someone got jostled, lost their balance, and fell down the stairs.

Kitchen was closed off from the rest of the room (narrow walkway to the left; bar in foreground removed earlier)

For a long time I've googled other configurations, scanned Houzz photos, watched youtube videos describing how to move base cabinets, and sketched various layouts that could work better in our limited space. I knew if I flattened part of the peninsula against the wall, and only had a little bump-out, we would have the same counter space but a much larger opening.

View of the opening, before the bar was removed (camera lens makes this seem more spacious than it felt)

Then a few weeks ago, my Mom said she was coming for a visit. I asked if she would help me with a project. She is the most capable person I know, but still she was skeptical - thankfully she agreed to help "if she could". I asked for a week off from my job and started preparing. Here are the steps I took, so I could maximize my time with my Mom:

• Inspected the base cabinets to see how they were attached. At one time I thought they were a solid unit, but soon discovered that they were component pieces with a few screws keeping them flush. There were also some screws into the walls. Screws seemed easy enough to remove when the time came.

• Figured out what to do about the corner cabinets. I was surprised to discover that they were not cabinets after all! In fact, they were spaces with lazy susan inserts and framed doors that were attached to the abutting cabinets. With limited woodworking skills, I thought it might be wise to buy a corner unit, and started trolling ReStore and Craigs List. I found some options but they either were sold only in a set or cost approx. $100. I sketched out a few alternatives to run by my Mom when she got here.

• Determined what floor repair would be needed. Since buying this house I thought it was ridiculous that the floor was tiled up to the cabinets. Why don't they tile the whole floor first, so there is less cutting? Tiles are pretty cheap, at least these ones are. I have since learned that it's common to lay the floor last, because people are more apt to replace the flooring than the base cabinets. I guess that makes sense, but not in my case. I was going to have weird tile pieces to remove, and gaps to fill.

• Learned how to remove tile, and how to lay tile. I had no experience with this and was intimidated. I youtubed "how to remove floor tile" and found some great instructions. I then gave it a try on a corner where some partial tile was exposed. It was critical that I had eye protection and gloves, because there were some flying shards! But the tiles came off with a few whacks, and that felt good.

• Located replacement tile. Thankfully I had seen a stack of 14 spare tiles in the garage when we moved in. That seemed to be enough to do the trick. Otherwise I would have trolled Habitat ReStore and the big boxes to find a matching terracotta (it is shocking how many color variations fall under "terracotta").

Narrow opening that aligns with a stairway opening

My cousin arrived with my Mom, and thank goodness. She has tackled many home improvement projects and learned fine carpentry from her father. She heard my ideas and started sketching some ideas. When my Mom saw them, she seemed less skeptical.

Original u-shaped configuration

The first thing we did was take a sledge hammer to the old countertops. They would have to go, and good riddance. I'm not a formica snob - I grew up with it - but this was posing as green marble. Ick. Our one expense was going to be a new set of countertops. Everything else I figured we could tackle on our own. The cabinets are nice, solid wood and did not need to be replaced.

After the countertops were removed - note that there is no corner cabinet around the lazy susan

The next thing we did was unscrew the base cabinets from each other and from the wall. The peninsula cabinets also had a bead of construction adhesive along the inside edge, which I knocked at with a chisel and hammer and was able to peel off without too much effort.

At this point the kitchen was like a big puzzle. I had been scheming for awhile but when were were in the midst of things, my Mom and I had some brainstorms that solved a lot of problems that I had been mulling over. For instance:

• Added a dedicated recycling receptacle. We have a trash drawer by the outside door, and that is helpful, but we accumulate recycling faster than trash - and there was no space for a bin in our small kitchen. The cabinet next to the trash had 3 drawers that stored odds and ends. I had searched in vain for another slide-out trash drawer that I could stick in that space, but could not find one. When we looked at the various base cabinets, we realized that there was another that had space to hold a plastic bin inside. The door was hinged, but that could be changed at some point with a slide-out kit. We swapped that cabinet with the 3-door model and finally got side by side trash and recycling areas!

• Reclaimed the bread drawer. This throwback does us no good - if we were to use it for bread, it would be moldy before we remembered where we put it. (We are "out of sight, out of mind" people, we've discovered). Turns out there was one screw keeping the whole metal contraption in the drawer. Once out, there was so much more space and no awkward opening.

• Found an easy solution to the corner "cabinet" that was not actually a cabinet. I was worried about putting an "end cap" base cabinet next to the lazy susan, and losing the open floor space that we had finally created. After staring at the mess of cabinets for awhile, my Mom noted that one of them was very narrow - it was for baking sheets and the like. By sliding that alongside the lazy susan, we had the structure we needed to attach a door and frame to, and it greatly minimized the amount of woodworking we would need to do to close off the rest of the corner.

• Gained a cutting board by the stove. It turns out that one of our base cabinets came with a slide-out cutting board. We never used it before, but after moving that base cabinet next to the oven, we've been pulling it out every day! (It helps that we don't have a countertop on right now to hide it from view - we would certainly have forgotten it again if it was only glimpsed once or twice). Right next to the stove is a very handy location, too. 

New layout with enough structure to build back a corner "cabinet"

All of this took one day with my Mom. It's amazing what can be accomplished with an extra set of hands and moral support.

The next day, we took a break and hit Home Depot to look into countertops. I had already done a lot of research and price comparisons, read about the pros and cons of the various materials, and made some decisions. In case it is helpful to anyone, here was my thought process:

• Natural stone: I hate trends and this one has been "hot" for more than a decade. There are some stones I love but they would not work... Marble would be too bright with all of the warm tones in my kitchen. Painting my cabinets is a possibility but even then the terra cotta floor is staying, and I couldn't reconcile those colors. Soapstone is awesome (reminds me of lab counters back in school) but very dark. Moreover, no matter what stone I might choose, they all wreak havoc on pottery and glassware. We are not a gentle group and have already shattered more than enough dishes on our hard floor. 

• Butcher block: Wood is more forgiving to heavy-handed people, and warmer to the touch. However, I did not want wood on wood, having decided not to paint the cabinets (at least not now). Also, I did not want to set myself up as more of a cleanup nag - I could see myself running after my family, mopping up spills so the wood did not start to warp or split. 

• Manmade: These options seemed like the best fit, despite what felt like irony over my disdain for the old formica counters. But Corian and its competitors seem pretty unoffensive, and I would not select a style that pretended to be something natural. I did not want a stone composite, because of the risk of shattering dishes... and as much as I like recycling and repurposing, many come in tutti fruity colors and speckles that are not for me.

We took a spin through Home Depot and IKEA and ended up with Corian's "sandstone", which was on sale. It's bound to blend into the background but it will do the job and brighten up the kitchen without clashing with the warm colors.

Corian 'Sandstone' that we selected for the counters

While we were at Home Depot, we picked up some pre-mixed mastic and colored grout for the tile (my cousin's advice). The next morning, we chipped away any partial tiles and cleared off other obstructions. Because we had enough tiles for the entire opening on the floor, we had a choice: cover the entire opening with tile (which would bump up the cabinets slightly) or fasten the base cabinets in place and just tile up to them, as the previous owners did (which would require cutting tile into smaller shapes). We decided that the first option was less work and would give us more flexibility - shaving off a sliver of wood from the bottom of a cabinet may seem like a mistake to some, but with shims and trim, we could recover from it if necessary.

Laying the tile was fast and satisfying

 Diving in, we spread mastic and started laying the tile. We did not use spacers because we were not starting from scratch - there were plenty of surrounding tiles to keep us in check. We also did not buy a grooved trowel (I'm sure there's an official name and I'm offending someone by not using it - the tool or the name). After spreading some mastic, we simply carved out some grooves with the edge of our putty knife.

Tile went in fast with both of us working

My Mom had a genius idea that she had just learned a few days before, watching the repair of a stairway in Frederick, MD. The workers edged the area with tape first, and did not have to mess around with a sponge etc. to get the excess grout off. So that's what we did. When we grouted later in the week, the tape eliminated 99% of the mess.

My Mom grouts between the lines of tape, which spared us a lot of cleanup headache

The floor looked so good, so fast, my family could not believe it. It was hard to keep the kids from stepping on the new tiles while everything dried - even we kept catching ourselves, and we should have known better!

We gained a heck of a lot of floor space and lost nothing in this fairly simple project!

Now my Mom and I worked on solidifying the base cabinets. We did shave a few millimeters off the bottom of the "end cap" cabinet, so it was level with the rest. To secure it a bit, we ran a bead of adhesive caulk along the inside edge of the cabinet, out of sight. Also, we added some framing to enclose the lazy susan, and provide support for the new countertop. We got a piece of luan cut to cover over the back of that area, and the side of the cabinet that was previously wedged between two others (that step was not absolutely necessary but we had extra wood.

As soon as we were done securing the cabinets, the rep from the countertop fabricator showed up - early. Perfect timing! He spent an hour or two measuring and photographing the area. We asked for a little bit of overhang off the end of the mini peninsula, so the kids will have a place to scoot up to and help cook, etc.

Peninsula is stained and ready for its new countertop, which will overhang 1' (to the right in this photo)

In total, this took 5 days (and we spent two of them at Home Depot and wandering through IKEA).

There are so many other improvements I am going to make to the kitchen, but this was the biggie, the one that needed to happen before I could move on the others (backsplash, additional storage, etc.). Thanks, Mom!! I could not have done this without you. It makes me happy every day to walk through this space without bumping into anyone or anything. I'll add a photo of the countertops when they come in.

Update Nov. 2015:

The counters have been in for almost a year! Here is how it looked after it was installed:

Neutral counters installed and other projects are underway

You can see some progress on some other kitchen projects... shelves along window, backsplash tile and enclosing the area above our cabinets that had become a dumping ground. More on that later.