Renovating on A Budget

My husband and I pride ourselves on renovating on a budget.  It is hard! I will admit.  I am guilty of watching all the DIY shows and wishing and wanting to have the nice updated home. Well it's just not happening.  So luckily I have been blessed with a husband who is very handy!
We decided that we wanted to update our old outdated 70's kitchen.  We went to Lowe's and received a quote to redo our kitchen leaving the same layout, but adding a few cabinets. We chose the most economical cabinets and we were told it would cost $10,000.00. That's not including the new counter tops! That took care of that idea.

Before

I don't know why I can't rotate this picture. This is the new breakfast bar.

 There used to be a cabinet over the counter top.
(That is why there is an opening in the cabinet).

It made our kitchen look so much bigger by removing it.
We also extended the breakfast bar out. So where it curves around, we
 brought the counter all the way out to that point.

 By the way, the refridgerator used to be white. 
 Black appliance paint is AWESOME!

After

Well, when all was said and done, we ended up spending around $2,500.00 and that is including the counter tops!  We used birch vernier plywood for the cabinet doors. We stained them with a pecan satin polyurethane stain. They turned out awesome!

We also wanted to replace our ugly 70's style counter tops. Granite was way too expensive! So, to do the counter tops, we just removed the existing laminate and replaced it with a laminate we found at Lowe's. We bought two sheets of "48x144" Golden Mascarello. We cut it to size and it looks incredible! It is amazing how much you can accomplish when you are willing to do it yourself and you have all the right tools! One important thing we learned while staining the cabinet doors was that it is not a good idea to stain wood in a cold garage. We had to redo two of the cabinet doors because the stain was too thick and did not go on evenly. The most amazing part of this whole renovation...we have saved so much money!  You don't have to have all the bells and whistles to have a nice kitchen. So many people think that you have to have granite counter tops and stainless steele appliances or your kitchen just isn't good enough. Well, we did purchase a stainless steele cooktop and microwave but only because they were the display models and were 70% off the original price! The refrigerator used to be white. It's amazing what a couple cans of black appliance paint can do. :) The wall oven only cost $150.00 off a classified add we saw on a website. You CAN save a ton of money if you are willing to take your time and shop around.