You shouldn't be intimidated to post this kitchen- it is beautiful! A years worth of work can now finally be enjoyed! Fabulous!

Great kitchen. (And, yours is larger than mine!)The island doesn't look like it clashes in the photos. Just goes to show you that there are beautiful kitchens out there, no matter what the price. Enjoy!

It's awesome! And it looks waaay more expensive than $10k. Love the chandelier above the sink. What a HUGE improvement!

Wow - what a transformation. It looks like you got rid of that popcorn ceiling too. Everything looks well together (on my monitor the island goes with the rest of the kitchen). You did a great job - enjoy!

It's gorgeous! Budgets help us get creative.. if you had more money to spend, it might not have turned out as unique and lovely. At least that is what I'm telling myself! :)

It looks beautiful, anyone would be proud of it. And terrific value.

Wow! It's beautiful! Now, I'm gonna be intimidated to post my small budget redo! It really looks lovely. Congratulations

I think your kitchen is absolutely beautiful. I love your lighting fixtures and paint color. It does not look budget or DIY. You did a fabulous job, now relax and enjoy!

It looks wonderful! I especially love your backsplash and your granite. Congrats!

Why on EARTH would you be hestitant to post this beautiful kitchen? Silly! ;^)

IT IS WONDERFUL!

I love your lighting fixtures--they look so good in your space, and that mini chandy over the sink oozes elegance. How wonderful that you were able to get this gorgeous kitchen at such an amazing cost! Way to SHOP!

I cannot tell at all from the photos that the island cart top clashes with your granite.

Congratulations on this obvious labor of love. It is smashing! Now enJOY it! :^)

It's lovely, and my favorite things are the light fixtures -- they look like jewelry. Big bang in a little space, well done!

Becky

I love it! Everything looks so new and fresh. Great lighting. The decor looks bright and inviting, yet calm and restful, all at once. You did great work, no matter how long it took!

I love it! Especially the light fixture over the sink and the tile. What color grout did you use? So far, does it seem like the tile and grout will be hard to maintain?

Beautiful transformation! Even more impressive when you consider the tight budget! Love the lighting! Absolutely gorgeous! Enjoy your beautiful new kitchen.

I think it looks fabulous! You did a great job, on a tight budget. You should be very proud. I love the light fixture. Adds just the right amount of pizazz! Congratulations and enjoy!!!

Wow, thanks for all of the compliments!

Yes, I completely agree about the lighting, I didn't think they would make such a difference but we just installed them yesterday and it just really puts the final touch on it. :)

I guess the island color looks worse in real life... I should thank my camera, then!

Kristinekr - we used white subway tile from Lowes. We also used the Bright White grout from Lowes. It hasn't discolored yet.. I do find that the tiles look pinkish though, as other people have said, just FYI.

I'm not sure if people can view the album, but I have a few more pics..

Magnetic Dry Erase board...

WOW! It is so beautiful and very impressive that you got your kitchen done for 10K!!

I love it!

Very lovely! You should not be intimidated at all to post after all your hard work! You did a great job! Love the chandy over the sink - I have the same one.
Enjoy your new kitchen!

Very nice. You did an awesome job!
ditto blonde1125! I think the lighting is a super POP!;)
You should be proud to show off your work of art. We thank you for sharing:)

You did a beautiful job! I have to say that the lighting is my favorite--jewelry for sure:-) Congrats on all of your hard work--I hope you enjoy your kitchen for years to come! Bon Appetit!

Great job! I like your new cabinets, but I LOVED your old cabinets! I'm sure there is a reason why you ditched them though. I'm betting the old ones weren't too functional. Good choices and bravo on the execution! DIY is tough, but it's super rewarding!

Oh your new kitchen is absolutely lovely! AND you did it yourselves...very impressive!!! You all deserve all the congratulations you are getting here!

wow, beautiful job. no shame AT ALL because it looks great!

you shopped very wisely, and knew how to pull it all together. your choices are wonderful. you should be very proud and happy!

glad you shared this, and i hope you'll be very happy in your new kitchen. :)

Were you just incredibly lucky in your bargain shopping or did you make subsequent decisions based on what you found while bargain shopping?

Impressive job, thndrsnow. Only you are worried about matching the countertops, not me. Do you roll the cart about or does it stay put? I really appreciate examples of cart usage.

Stunning!!!!!

I love the cool white cabinetry warmed by the rich patterned
Santa Ceci granite counters that go perfectly with the Minka
lighting and the matching warmth of the porcelain tile
floor. The combination of lemon pearl and cinnamon slate
are a beautiful surprise. Your kitchen is graceful and
well-designed with a bit of pizzazz that warms the heart.
You created a wonderful transformation. I would never know
you found such treasures as the cart, the good quality
cabinets and the E-bay hardware. You should be beaming with
pride as this is a glorious kitchen.

Lastly I must tell you, your kitchen is larger than mine.
I love kitchens with flavor and yours is it!
~boxer

You did a great job of transforming your kitchen. I love your center light fixture - it looks very high end and stylish.

Nice looking kitchen!

Like so many others, I love your kitchen. The lights are the "jewelry" for the room.
The one thing that I find like a "light-bulb" idea is your magnetic dry-erase board at the end of the cabinet run. It's easy to have a magazine-pretty kitchen. It's hard to have a magazine-pretty kitchen that works for a family. Having a message center is important, and you found a great place and a novel way to do it.

I really like it - the light in the kitchen is beautiful! You should be extremely proud of yourself for creating such a wonderful space.

It's gorgeous and you deserve an award for doing so much with your budget! I absolutely adore your sink corner. Those windows are wonderful! And your drum pendant is downright yummy. Great job!

Stunning space! The kitchen I see on my monitor does not look budget at all! You've picked very timeless colors and material. You have a keen eye for detail and a bargain to have gotten all that for a small budget. I can't decide if my fav part is the lighting or the genius dry erase at the end of the upper. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful kitchen. You'll have years of fret fun in there!

I love all of your choices! Great taste, and so rewarding to DIY -- Congratulations on a fabulous job!! Your lighting is the perfect bling, your mag/white board is a great idea on that end cab. Your paint color is so dramatic and gorgeouslly complements your granite and orb. Lovely!

I think it is fabulous. Your old kitchen was not so awful, but the knob placement would have annoyed me.
Your new kitchen is so much nicer. The lighting is lovely and your other choices are warm and pretty.

Lots to admire. I hope the person who was wondering if a soffit is ever Ok sees your kitchen - the soffit looks smaller than in the old kitchen but with the way you treated it with the darker paint looks great and is a real asset to your design. Good design can happen at a variety of price points - you shouldn't be intimidated you got fantastic value for your budget and terrific aesthetic impact, period (no qualifiers).

I don't like it more but I must confess I really like your old kitchen as well.

Congratulations! Totally classic! Enjoy the new kitchen. I think it looks fabulous. Love the light fixture!

I think it looks great!

How beautiful! Congrats to you! I love your light fixtures. I know you are enjoying your gorgeous new kitchen.

What a wonderful and inviting kitchen! I also liked your old cabs but obviously the layout was poor. Your kitchen is now highly functional and beautiful, too! I love your corner windows, the paint, and lighting (soooo pretty)! Did you make your message board or was it that size when you bought it? And you did it all yourself! You and DH should be bursting with pride! Enjoy!

hi thnder...

I wasn't expecting to see such a beautiful kitchen..And DIY?? for 10K?? You should be extremely proud of yourself. I'm quite jealous that I don't have your talents...

KA:)

Thanks so much again for the compliments, and I should have said this in my original post, but many thanks for all the help I have received from this board during the renovation as well.

To Florantha's question: "Were you just incredibly lucky in your bargain shopping or did you make subsequent decisions based on what you found while bargain shopping?" - I am a huge bargain shopper and will sit all day at the computer until I find the best deal haha. With the Craigslist finds, I think some or maybe most of it was luck, but I usually had to "work" for it by constantly checking and waiting a long time for the items I wanted to appear. None of my appliances are high-end and only my dishwasher is new though. I didn't have exact requirements for the appliances, just stainless. Those items are competitive on Craigslist, at least where I live, so you had to respond within a few minutes of a posting or else you probably lost to someone else. Dishwashers seemed especially popular, and I could never get one that I wanted, so in the end we decided to purchase that new. With my range, I think the owners knew something was about to go wrong, because within a few months after we used it (before the reno), we had to replace the electrical cord. Thank goodness it was only $20 or so.

To Florantha's question: "Do you roll the cart about or does it stay put?" - Since our kitchen is small, the cart works well for us. I use it when cooking, but we definitely move it around often, especially when carrying things in and out of the kitchen since it leads to the back porch.

With the lighting, I also had to wait and check every single day for something to appear on the CSN lighting clearance site. For those that don't know, these are return items to the CSN store that they sell at a heavy discount, usually 50% off or more. I had a dream light that I saw at a local store, but just couldn't shell out full price for it, so I waited for any sort of inspiration on the CSN site, and that ultimately lead me to the fixtures I purchased. The nicer things don't stick around very long on that site though, I remember having something in my cart once and it disappeared before I got to checkout. The website is: http://www.csnlighting.com/asp/public/static/customerservice/return_sales_items.asp?clid=177

With our cabinets, we purchased them when HD had the 20% off all stock cabinets, plus we were able to use the Lowes 10% movers coupon on top of that (varies by cashier). This coupon is available in the mover's packet at the post office, or you could sign up for it online (and print it multiple times to use at HD since they accept competitor's coupons). I think if I had extra money to spare, I would definitely have upgraded the cabinets.. as most people were saying to do. With everything else we purchased from Lowes or HD, we planned out our purchases ahead of time so we could use the 10% coupon.

To flwrs n co's question: Did you make your message board or was it that size when you bought it?
For the message board, we cut a piece of sheet metal to size, and glued it to the end of the cabinet. Then we purchased a self-stick roll of dry erase sheet, cut it to size, and stuck it on top of the sheet metal.

And finally, to the comments about my old kitchen, the picture probably doesn't make it seem that bad, but it really was! The cabinets were very much peeling and they had an old smell to them. I also don't think they could have been removed and refinished without damaging them because they were so old.. I do think they are more solid than my HD stock cabinets, but at the end of the day, they weren't laid out in the size that we needed, especially since we installed a dishwasher. Which brings us to the dishwasher, which you could see in the "before" picture sitting in the front left. We were originally going to install one when moving into the house because we had inherited it from my in-laws, but decided to wait until we did a full reno. We attached a piece of plywood to the top of it, of which I put contact paper on to look better and it just sat there as storage space for a couple of years - the black plastic covered side exposed and everything. The flooring was one giant piece of laminate that was peeling on the edges, the laminate countertop had green and blue swirls on it. There were pieces of backsplash missing on the walls and large holes drilled into them from the previous owners. The list goes on.. LOL. We did raise the ceiling a few inches and got rid of the popcorn ceiling. And, we did raise the soffit, as someone mentioned and knocked out the soffit on the one side. We couldn't get rid of it on the sink wall, though, unless we did some major structural change.

I just blabbed on and on... haha.. Hopefully some of the above will help someone out. I would be happy to answer any other questions!

I certainly do not want to mislead anyone, so perhaps some would find this useful. :)

$700 - Fridge - GE Profile - Craigslist
$300 - OTR Microwave - GE Profile - Craigslist
$450 - Range - Frigidaire Dual Fuel - Craigslist
$550 - Dishwasher - GE - GE store online
$1500 - Cabinets - stock from HD (I know, shame on us...)
$50 - Cabinet Hardware - ebay store The Knob Shop
$2500 - Countertops - Granite Santa Cecilia - Lowes
$265 - Sink - Pegasus Chocolate Granite - HD
$103 - Faucet - Price Pfister Ashfield - eBay
$750 - Flooring - Porcelain tile - HD - $750 (includes material, thinset, grout, tools, etc.)
$75 - Paint - BM Cinnamon Slate soffit and Valspar Lemon Pearl
$112 - Center light fixture - Minka Lavery Spazio Three Light Pendant - csnlighting.com clearance center website
$37 - Chandelier - Minka Lavery Mini Chandelier in Castlewood Walnut - csnlighting.com clearance center website
$85 Island Cart - Craiglist
$250 - Center lights and undercabinet lighting - eBay
$100 - Backsplash - HD
$2500 give or take - Other (drywall, asbestos removal, insulation, other tools, misc.)

We paid $230 for a guy to help us with mudding the drywall, but otherwise, labor cost was zero.

As you can see, we saved the most on the cabinets, but again, they are stock cabinets from HD. I probably would have gone a different route, but the other fact is that we don't plan to live here for more than 5 additional years.

Yes totally shame on you for designing an absolutely stunning kitchen!!! You have a beautiful eye, and some beautiful bargains. Money is only one component to a beautiful kitchen. If you don't have an eye for design, it doesn't matter how much $$$ you have to spend. Terrific job.

Shame on you?? Are you kidding!? There is nothing wrong wtih buying stock cabinets, especially considering your long range plans. You are SMART to stick to a budget and make hard choices.

You've inspired me! We are getting ready to do a kitchen of a very similar size and age, and this makes me so excited. Your kitchen is gorgeous, and you should be PROUD to post it!! I get more excited over kitchens in this price range than those I know I could never incorporate into my home due to the huge pricetags, so I really appreciate that you shared yours! :) ENJOY IT!

Love it! Wow, you did an awesome job. The light fixtures are just perfect.

Your kitchen and the detail on your sources and how you lurked on Craigslist are a true inspiration. I know time is money but look at how much you saved by spending the shopping/research time on the bargains you found. I hope you don't mind but I may link to your post for future Kitchen Forum posters looking for money saving tips. Congratulations and thank you.