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Kitchen Progress and Hardware Installation!

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

You GUYS! I feel like this post is so incredibly overdue it’s not even funny. We started working on the kitchen, oh, at the end of JUNE, and I am just now posting a project update. That’s ridiculous. July was a little crazy for us with lots of travel for various things and trying to squeeze in kitchen work in the midst of the madness (thank goodness for awesome guest posters!), but that has all settled down now (hopefully!), so prepare yourselves for many, many kitchen posts! 🙂

When we last left our kitchen, I showed you that it looked like this when we moved in:

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

Yikes! Scary, I know. But with no budget for a complete overhaul at the time, we painted the cabinets white and called it a day.

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

It still wasn’t my dream kitchen by a long shot, but it got the job done, and we made it work. Six years later, though, our painted laminate cabinets were chipping, a few were broken, and I didn’t know how much longer I could take that ugly fruit backsplash. 😀 So Donnie and I saved our pennies and prepared for a big ol’ kitchen renovation.

So we started with this…

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

We tore out all of the cabinets and countertops…

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

{And discovered really ugly wallpaper behind the cabinets! This kitchen was just full of surprises! 🙂 }

…attempted to chip off the old fruity backsplash, but that was a big fat fail. So instead Donnie ended up cutting out that part of the drywall…

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

{For some reason I only have a grainy iPhone photo of this. Probably because it was too ugly to warrant busting out the good camera. 😉 }

…and then replacing it!

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

We also ripped out that weird half wall with spindles…

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

…and covered up an oddly shaped window that looked out into our dining room so that we could fit everything into the new kitchen layout.

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

Whew! That was a lot! Then it was finally time to move onto installation! We went with IKEA GRIMSLOV cabinets (I’m going to have Donnie write a whole post on installing those babies!) and Caesarstone quartz countertops in Organic White.

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

See how we went from ugly, outdated kitchen to total demolition to new cabinets and countertops in about two minutes?! If only it were that easy in real life! In reality, we {okay, mostly Donnie 🙂 } spent hours upon hours upon hours in this space tearing everything apart and putting it back together. We still have quite a bit to go, but I’m thrilled with how far we’ve already come!

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

Before we were able to move all of our kitchen stuff back into the cabinets and drawers, though, there was one more detail we had to take care of– hardware! My sweet friends at D. Lawless Hardware were so kind to provide the hardware for our kitchen, and it. is. stunning!

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

Now because I am a huge nerd, I read all sorts of blog posts about the best ways to install hardware on cabinets. Most of them said to grab a template like this one…

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

…stick it on the edge of your cabinet or drawer, mark your spot, and drill the holes. Sounds easy enough, right? Weeeeeellllll, it did end up being an easy process, but the method I described above didn’t work for us because of where we wanted to place our hardware, so we came up with our own simple method instead!

Since we had chosen cup pulls, we wanted to place them in the middle of our drawers rather than at the top. (I actually spent a lot of time looking at pictures to see what the “correct” placement would be and saw cup pulls both in the middle of the drawer and at the top that looked good, so I think it’s just a matter of what look you like on your specific cabinets!) We ended up using the template we had and modifying it to fit our needs.

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

To make the template work for us, we placed the cup pull behind the template, centered it horizontally, and then determined the height on the template that would correspond to the vertical middle of the drawer. We circled those two holes with a Sharpie.

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

That made it easy to place the bottom of the template at the bottom ledge of the middle drawer indent, center it horizontally, and mark the drill locations through the template. We drilled the holes where we had marked the spots, and boom. Gorgeous, perfectly centered kitchen hardware!

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

For the knobs, we again looked at placement options in many, many kitchens and decided that we would line up the middle of the knob with the horizontal trim piece on the cabinet face and center it on the vertical trim piece.

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

Of course, no matter how we held our template, none of the holes matched up with the exact spot we wanted to use. Thankfully, simple measuring saved the day!

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

All we had to do was measure the vertical trim piece to find the center, mark the spot, and drill!

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

With our beautiful knobs and pulls installed, we are one step closer to our finished kitchen!

Kitchen Updates and Hardware Installation | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

I have to say a huge thanks to D. Lawless Hardware for providing the beautiful knobs and cup pulls! I cannot say enough good things about their huge selection of gorgeous hardware and super fast delivery. Be sure to pop over to their website and check them out!

We’re crossing things off our kitchen to-do list left and right, but we still have some projects left to complete… We need to install the tile backsplash, put the toe-kicks in place, swap out the overhead lighting and add some under-cabinet lighting, finish up some trim pieces, and don’t even get me started on the pantry overhaul! 🙂

I know it will all come together, though, and I can’t wait to see it when it does! Oodles and oodles of updates are on their way, so stay tuned, friends! Have a wonderful week!

Delightful Sign Off

A huge thanks to D. Lawless Hardware for providing product for this post. My favorable opinion of beautiful, high-quality hardware is 100% my own. 🙂 For more information, see my disclosures here.

15 Comments

  1. Katie @ Little House of Four says:

    WOW, it looks amazing already! I love the cabinets and countertops that you chose and of course the hardware is perfect. I can’t wait to see the finished space.

    1. justagirlabby says:

      Thank you so much, sweet friend! It’s coming along, slowly but surely! 🙂 Hope you’re having a wonderful Monday!

      ~Abby =)

  2. Lindsay Eidahl says:

    We are doing a kitchen makeover too!!! I love how yours is coming along. I have a question about the countertops – do you like the quartz??? We have been looking at them and think we want to go with them, but they are super expensive and worried about how they will be. I thought since we have such a tiny kitchen, the countertops wouldn’t be so much. That was wishful thinking! 😉

    1. justagirlabby says:

      We LOVE the quartz!! I love the look of it, and from what I’ve read it’s way more low maintenance than some of the other surfaces. We went through IKEA to get ours because they were less expensive than the boutique kitchen & bath places. We wanted Caesarstone just because they had the color we wanted, but I think Home Depot and Lowe’s both carry Silestone, which I’ve heard good things about too. Good luck with your reno!!

      ~Abby =)

  3. Hi, Abby! Your kitchen looks great! That is wonderful that you are doing the renovation yourself! I bought cabinet pulls at least 3 years ago and still haven’t installed them! I am afraid to drill the holes. It turns out that the builder didn’t install the doors exactly evenly with each other. So if I use a template for the knobs, they won’t line up! I am going to have to carefully measure everything!

  4. Alana @ I have a Future and a Hope says:

    I love the cabinets and the sink especially! I can’t wait to see everything finished. I wish we had an IKEA near us, maybe not I’d be broke. Ha!

  5. Kristine Manley says:

    Looks great Abby, I’m getting ready to have an old Trash Compactor pulled out of my kitchen. You may be too young to remember those. LOL!

  6. Hi, Abby ~ This room is looking SO great! Even unfinished! I love, love, love those cabinets! We’re getting ready to redo our kitchen, and I was just going to paint our existing cabinets, but now I’m thinking about installing new ones {Hubs will love that, btw :0) }. I also love the knobs and drawer pulls you chose. I’m definitely going to check out D. Lawless Hardware when we get to that point. Good luck with the rest of the kitchen, and thanks for sharing this update!!

  7. Leah Sannar says:

    Ooh, those are fabulous! I love the white so much! I can’t wait until our lease is up. I miss owning a house. :o)

  8. Looking good! I can’t wait until we can update our kitchen…and everything else. 🙂

  9. Kim@NewlyWoodwards says:

    It’s looking awesome already! Such a huge transformation and a light and bright space. (And we also LOVED our cabinets that were like these in the old house. I’m sure you’ll love them, too.)

  10. Sirley Young says:

    Hey, I’m completely new to the blogging world but I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now. I love all the fresh and unique ideas you provide.
    Your new kitchen is gorgeous. We (my husband, our 2 year old son and a new baby due in November) aren’t even close to owning our very own forever home yet. But one day I get to go all DIY crazy over my own house 🙂 I’ll know where to go for inspiration 🙂 Thank you!

  11. Can you provide a link for the orange template pictured above?
    Also, size and type of drill bit did you use?

    1. Donnie Lawson says:

      You’ll have to search on the Ikea website for the orange template. Honestly, I can’t remember the size of the drill but used… just one slight larger than the hardware screws.

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