The Kitchen's New Layout, with Walls and Everything.

I meant to write this post last week from my hotel room in Mexico (my little sis got married!), but the internet was nowhere near reliable enough to upload the photos, so this kitchen update is coming at you today! My apologies in advance--you'll likely get at least one more kitchen update this week. I am really trying to stay up on them and write everything in real time so that not only can you see how things progress, but also so I don't get behind and gloss over something.

Last week , week 2 of our remodel, was a big week in the kitchen. We finally got to see our new layout come to fruition. I know I have posted this layout before, but I hope you find it continually helpful in understanding where things shifted. There are a few changes that have been made, but the changes in the layout remain the same.

Last week, we really focused on getting that far right wall in the kitchen down and the new recess, walk-in pantry and closet in the mudroom defined. When I left off with demo last in this post, it looked like this:

We started by scoring where the wall our stay in tact and started tearing down the rest of the drywall:

And eventually, the other side and 2x4s came down, too. At this point you could see into what used to be our old laundry space. (If you missed the new one--by all means, stop reading and check it out here).

We called in our trusted contractor that helped us in the laundry room to address the electrical and water pipes and frame out the new spaces so he could also run the new electrical. He's so fast and does quality work, it felt worth it to have him jump in at this point.

We decided on a pocket door for the new pantry, and as luck would have it, the pipe for our outside hose was exactly where the new pocket door was designed to go. Francisco rerouted the piping and fortunately that has been the only hiccup so far. *knocking on all the wood!*

I left for Mexico as drywall was going up and I snapped these photos just yesterday!

Hey drywall, you make everything look so good. In case you have lost your bearings, the door on the right leads to the new laundry room and the garage. We envisioned having floor to ceiling lockers there, but at the very last minute (I mean, we were AT Ikea getting the doors for said lockers!), we nixed the idea for a more traditional coat closet. This house never had a coat closet and, shoot, it desperately needs one. And one right next to the garage where we mostly exit felt pretty perfect. You can catch a little glimpse of it in the photo below, through the sliding door.

There's enough room for a mirror on the wall to the left of the will-be-closet, and maybe a few hooks for keys and Charly's feeding station will fit there, too. It was meant to be.

I plan on hanging the ironing board in the closet for easy laundry room access, and storing our vacuum and having bins for gloves, hats, scarves, etc. too. But most importantly a rack to hang our many coats needed for long idaho winters. (I'm way too excited about this coat closet!)

Okay, back to view where you can see both sides. In the middle we recessed the wall where our all-refrigerator will be, as well as, a built-in microwave with surrounding cabinetry. Recessing this 26 inches really adds all of that room to our kitchen and made everything feel so much more spacious…says the girl with a completely empty kitchen. To the left of the recess, you're looking at our new walk-in pantry.

A real dream of a space. In the back, left corner (where you can kind of see the plug and water line hookup) is where our all-freezer will be and then shelving will continue to the right of it…

…behind where the recessed wall is until it meets the back of the coat closet.

It's not a huge huge space--the back wall where the freezer will be on measures 8.5 ft--but we're coming from utilizing cabinetry as pantry space. And it's probably 3x the size of our last kitchen's pantry. We can't wait to add a bunch of shelves and really make it function and shine.

This week, we're going to work on getting all the fresh drywall taped and mudded (hold me), while our new windows go in. Gah! I can barely wait to share that with you later this week.