My Kitchen Remodel Inspired by Mom

After my mother died from breast cancer complications on January 27, 2007, my sister, brother and I (mainly my brother) worked for several months to upgrade mom's house in an active adult community in South Sacramento so that it could be sold. It was a tough real estate market, but the house sold in only a few weeks because it was remodeled so beautifully. 


Greg - a general contractor - repainted the entire house, ripped out the thick fabric and replaced it with light brown wood laminate floors, replaced the molding, upgraded the bathrooms with safety rails, and did lots of additional touch ups, etc.  My sister, Carrie, and the real estate agent "staged" the final look so that everything was warm and inviting.

The updated house was very beautiful, but I was sad because mom was unable to experience these great changes while she was alive. 

I vowed then and there to fix up my house while I am still alive to enjoy it.   Over the next six months or so, I hired my brother and others to repair my roof, paint the outside of the house, renovate both bathrooms, replace the worn, cheap fabric, move some of mom's furniture into my TV room and art studio, among other improvements. But I got tired of construction and never got to the kitchen.

One day in November 2007, I had a "fix-it" bee in my bonnet and impulsively got some of my many paint cans and started painting the kitchen cabinets. There was no plan except to try different colors, live with them for a while, then choose one color, clean and prime the cabinets, then repaint them. But I never finished the work. For two years I had mismatched cabinets! One lemon yellow, one peachy, one burgundy/rust. Bohemian-esque, to be sure!


(My "before" kitchen)

Then IKEA had their annual 20% off sale on kitchens. It was time to get busy! For a couple of weeks, I searched the IKEA brochures and made many trips to IKEA, did some cost comparisons with Home Depot and Lowe's, then made my cabinet and color choices. I used IKEA's online kitchen planner to design my kitchen, then worked with several IKEA kitchen experts to make sure I had done everything correctly. But, once again, impulsive me, (the me that wanted to get the job done FAST), did not do things in the proper order. On November 6th, a Friday, I started the kitchen demolition process before actually buying the cabinets on Sunday. So if the cabinets had been out of stock, I would have been without a kitchen at all! But my Guardian Angels - my mom and my mother-in-law - were rooting for me to be successful, so I was able to buy everything on Sunday for a Friday delivery.

What follows is my daily diary of the kitchen remodel and some pictures that tell the tale in graphic detail.