2026 Kitchen Remodel Project

How it started....

I was running my dishwasher when I noticed some water seeping around under the kitchen floor. I called up my appliance guy to take a look and see if whatever was leaking could be replaced. He showed me this and said I had bigger concerns. Basically the house I just moved in to had a leaky dishwasher for however many years. The water had completely eaten away at some flooring and had gone into the subfloor.

Here is a 'before' pic of the kitchen from the listing when I bought the house.

Mold Remediation

So the first step was to get the mold damage assessed and removed.

This involved getting before and after air quality samples to determine the amount of spores initially present and how much were lingering after the remediation. Also an asbestos test since the demo team would be tearing stuff up.

I'm only focusing on the kitchen here - but this same process had to be done in the basement underneath the kitchen. Yes, the mold went through the floor and into the ceiling of the basement. 🤬

The process involved creating a negative pressure area with HEPA filters, industrial fans, and filtering the air to the outside (as the spore levels are not harmful to the natural environment).

Some of the drywall had to be removed as well due to mold creeping up on that.

Here we see some of the bigger problem areas on the subfloor. Removing the mold here required a combination of physical and chemical techniques.

More demolition

Once the mold remediation was complete, I was left with this. The company that did the mold remediation also provided a quote to do more demo and rebuild the kitchen. But hey I'm a baller on a budget. I enjoy home projects - but hate having my home also double as a construction site. While intimidated, I also have an unshakable belief in myself to get the job done.

Removing the existing Pergo flooring revealed there was also some vinyl flooring before getting to the backerboard. I mostly used my pry bar for pulling this all up. There were about a million staples in the backerboard which was the most frustrating part. I also uncovered a few small patches of mold on the subfloor by the refridgerator and in an exterior corner. I was able to remove these with a vinegar mixture and dry the locations out.

I didn't like where one of the vents was placed (directly in front of the sink where I would stand) - so I moved it! Since the ceiling in the basement was already opened up, I could easily access the existing duct work and moved the vent to pop up where the range and dishwasher would be.

Materials used

Now that all the ick has been removed, here is what went into the new kitchen...

Specialty Tools:
I have a good set of basic tools, but needed to get a few other things

Things I already own that came in handy: jigsaw, circular saw, table saw, compound miter saw, tile saw, clamps, handheld router, orbital sander, drill, 3 foot level, shop vac, tin snips, large pry bar, tamper bar, 5 in 1 painter tool
Tiling: Grout mixer attachment, various trowels, Lash 360 tile spacers, tile file (I should have picked up tile nibblers, but that seemed too specific for one-time use tool), cats paw pry bar
Cabinets: Laser level
Fixtures/Plumbing: Pipe wrench, socket saver/pipe reamer

Flooring Materials (Floor & Decor):

Schluter Ditra for the uncoupling membrane
Laticrete Sure Set LHT adhesive mortar
Adessi Uptown Antracite Matte 15x30 tile
Mapei Ultracolor Charcoal grout

Cabinets (Ikea):

Sektion cabinet system
Enköping cabinet faces in white
Bagganäs handles

Counters (Habitat for Humanity ReStore):

Three 8' slabs of Acacia butcher block counter
Waterlox Sealer and Satin finish

Fixtures (Home Depot):

Ruvati 28" drop in sink
Kraus Oletto single handle faucet
Insinkerator Evolution 1300
Bosch 500 series dishwasher

Backsplash (Floor & Decor):

Canvas La Belle Sage Ceramic Polished 3x12 tile
Grout tbd - will be something light, like a sandstone color

Many thanks to Floor & Decor for working through the tile purchasing process and helping me out with a million questions. The Ikea kitchen planning process was good - I found their online planning tool to be super detailed and the review/approval helpful for all the design questions I had.

Flooring installation

Laying down the Schluter Ditra membrane was pretty easy. Cut to size, roll it out, adjust as necessary. Applying the mortar wasn't too bad - but getting the consistency just right, smooshing it in, and evenly setting the Ditra on the mortar took some patience.

I did several rounds of dry-fitting the tile. The tile is pretty big, so that helped when needing to make cuts to fit around corners, etc.

Installing the tile was frustrating, but so rewarding as I was going along. Again, needing to get the mortar just right, backbuttering, and using the tile spacers required some patience. The whole process took several days spread out over a few weeks. I had hoped to get it done before heading out to see family for Thanksgiving, but needed to finish up in December.

Tile all put in! Having a floor is so nice!

Once the tile was all installed, I needed to grout it. Very messy process, but as I was going it was awesome to see the vision coming along.

Maisy approves of the cool stone!

One thing I didn't realize is how much pet hair shows up on dark stone. I'm ok with that because it actually makes finding the hair easy to clean.

Cabinets

With the floor installed, I was able to move some appliances back into the kitchen! It was so nice having the refridgerator back in the kitchen. 😅

One thing I didn't get any pictures of was the process to get the microwave back in place. Fortunately/Unfortunately the new cabinets are not the exact measurements of the old ones - so I needed to move the microwave over 2 inches. This wouldn't have been such a big deal, except I had just installed the microwave before this whole ordeal began, and I installed it with a vent to the outside. So I ended up needing to shift a hole I had put in the house over a couple inches and re-purchase some new duct work for it. On top of that, the new cabinets are a few inches deeper than the old ones - so I also had to bump out the microwave so that the door could open too! This was a process that involved a lot of trial and error.

Minor electrical and plumbing adjustments were required. I prefer a more minimalist look, so I took out the switch for the disposal so that I would have an integrated button on the sink - these are more often found on sinks that are on a kitchen island, but I'm crazy like that. Besides, I may end up using the spot where the old disposal switch was to use that for a switch for under cabinet lighting.

Just a typical day! Working a day job while having the home's heart under construction means you have deal with living in a mess pretty often.

Countertop

Once the cabinets are mostly in place, time to move on to the countertops! I went with butcher block because they are affordable and I can personally control quality. Here is a picture where I was working on the miter joint - rather than doing an easier butt joint. As was mentioned with tiling, this process too required a lot of patience.

Once I got the countertop all cut, shaped, and the corner assembled, I was able to apply the Waterlox. That stuff has a lot of fumes, but the end result is so worth it. The countertop hardly feels like wood, but still has plenty of natural warmth.

One thing I discovered in this process is that my counter is about an inch higher than I intended it to be. This was due to the cabinet installation being a bit higher up than it should have been. I'm all good with this an am trying to coin the term "bachelor height" counters.

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