Kitchen Bar (Redesign)

When the 2nd day of installation was done, we realized that there was a miscommunication between our designer and us. We're certain that we explained we wanted the cabinets to be at 40 inches above the floor, where the wall was currently cut, but when they were installed, they sat a good 4 inches below the wall height. So we had a couple of options:

1. Keep the cabinets at the height they were at, and install the countertop lower than we originally intended (normal counter height). This also would involve cutting the wall down more.
2. Keep the cabinets at the height they were at, and have the countertop be two-tiered (i.e. a lower and upper countertop - one on the cabinets, one on the wall)
3. Order new cabinets at the correct height and lose the ones already installed (lose as in lose the money paid for the cabinets, as they won't take them back).
4. Take the cabinets off the wall and have the installer build up underneath them so there is a taller toe kick. 

None of those options were very appealing to us, so we talked with our expert carpenter friend, who gave us this idea:

• Build on top of the current cabinets to raise the counter height to the wall height, and create a wrap around the wall to ensure the height is even all the way around.

Perfect! This, in our minds, was actually better than the original idea of having cabinets all the way to the bottom of the counter, because it would be easier to get into the cabinets with an overhang above it.

So while we waited another month for our pantry, we also had them order two 1x8 pieces of lumber to match the cabinets so they could construct the build up. (Lucky you don't have to wait a month for the conclusion to this post!)

In the meantime, we managed to finish painting the kitchen and dining room in new colors - warm stone (brownish gray) for the kitchen cabinet area and backside of the bar, and agreeable gray (light gray) for the dining room and part of the kitchen wall that was shared with the dining room.

Finally, the day arrived, and the installer came back on a Friday afternoon to put in our pantry and build up our bar. Below is the finished project of the bar area.

They had to take off the countertop supports and move them up to meet the build up, but they did such a great job that you can't even tell it wasn't like this in the first place!

So with this key component of the kitchen done, we were ready to move onto the countertop (mostly) ! We still needed to do some cleanup and putting stuff back together before then (you might notice the outlets and vents exposed, and the fact that our fridge is still in the living room!).