Eric and Wendy’s New Kitchen

When I met Eric at an East Nashville Merchants Association mixer in December, he was in the process of designing the remodel for a new and improved kitchen in the historic East Nashville home he owns with his wife, Wendy. The project involved a handful of changes and upgrades to their existing kitchen.

One of the most significant changes to their kitchen was a widening of the doorway between the kitchen and the eating area adjacent to make the two rooms feel more like one larger room.

(click on photo to enlarge)

Once all of the framing was complete we put insulation between the studs along the two exterior walls and covered the walls and ceiling back up with new sheetrock. But not before Wendy’s dad, Wendell, reworked the electrical for the whole kitchen to allow for new electrical outlets and new lighting. Wow! Thanks Dad.

After the walls were taken care of it was time to move on to the floor. Eric and Wendell had already removed all of the flooring down to the original, base layer of pine subflooring. After leveling out a few humps in the floor, we installed new tongue in groove subfloor panels on top of that old pine. Then we laid down quarter inch sheets of tile backer boards on top of that to provide a solid base for the porcelain tile to bond to.

Eric and Wendy choose a nice, earthy porcelain tile for their floor that consisted of both 12 and 6 inch square pieces, each tile looking slightly different and laid out in a unique offset pattern.

At this point we were entering the home stretch and it was beginning to look like a kitchen again. The next step was to install the cabinets and countertop, which after a few tweaks and cuts to make everything set level, turned out looking great.

(click on photo to enlarge)

Now all that remained was to install trim around the windows, doors, and cabinets.

They also wanted to convert the space where the fridge was originally residing into a large pantry. We reframed the space to accommodate a nice and simple bi-fold door that they had come across.

We decided that since the pantry door would see a lot of daily use, it may function better to have it open in the center like a french door instead of as a bi-fold sliding along an upper and lower track. This also kept the floor under the door free from having a rail installed on it. We removed the center hinges from the bi-fold door and re hinged the two sections. It now swings open from the center.