And now for the after:

The after, without much put back in, shows the back splash off pretty well. We decided to go with the white subway tiles, with an added accent tile in metallic, brushed satin nickle. We have really loved the look of the accent tile breaking up what would otherwise be a plain wall.

My most favorite thing, aside from the counter top, is my integrated sink from Wilsonart. It is such a nice feature, and being able to just swipe messes into the sink has made my life easier than I ever imagined. Cleaning up is such a breeze now. In the photo you will also see the faucet that Delta provided. We have really enjoyed having the soap pump on the sink, and especially being able to pull out the faucet and use it as a spray instead of having a separate spray.

One final shot of the entire kitchen:

There are still a few things that we would like to do, like change the lighting (as you can see in the photos, it’s so dark, even in the middle of the afternoon). We are also looking into new window treatments to add a bit more pizazz. We are so happy with the outcome though, and have nothing but good things to say about our new counter tops and sink. We can’t thank Wilsonart enough for providing them for this project.

As you can see, it doesn’t take much to make a HUGE impact on the look of a kitchen. What do you think of what we did? Do you like the outcome?

We had hoped to replace our kitchen cabinets before putting on a new counter top, however the price was way beyond what we could budget for. Our cabinets still function, and since we had painted them they look much nicer than they are. We decided to keep them, and focus on finding the best counter top for our budget.

I had actually seen the Wilsonart HD in a home that was being remodeled in my parents neighborhood. Luckily the owner was excited about what he was doing, and more than happy to show us around and give us the low down on all the products he had used. The kitchen counters in the home used to be laminate from the early 1990s. When we first walked into the new kitchen we really thought it was stone! So when he told us what it was we knew we had to look into it. After all, it was being used in a home that was worth 3x more than ours.

Sure enough when we saw it in person at our local Lowe’s we were sold. Not only was the price going to fit well in our budget, but it was a product that we knew would look amazing in our kitchen! A stone look and feeling, with out the stone price tag. We decided to start saving up in hopes to do the kitchen in the summer. Luckily for us, Wilsonart donated our counter top and our integrated sink as part of their Ambassador Program (learn more at the Lean Remodeler). We were thrilled to learn that we would be able to get our new kitchen much sooner than expected.

Like most people with bigger dreams than budgets, we always want to make the biggest impact with the money we do spend. It really helps that we are handy and can do a lot of the work ourselves, since labor can cost quiet a bit. One thing that we have learned over the course of making our home our own is that it really doesn’t take much to make a big impact! Paint, simple accessories, and even doing just one big change (like a counter top, or new flooring), can refresh a space without breaking the bank.

What about you? Do you have big dreams and a small budget too?

And here is what it looked like right after:

Look at the shine! The color we picked is called Deepstar Bronze, and it is a very pretty neutral that has a lot of depth to it. There is even a hint of blue/green, which we thought would look great with the Venetian plaster treatment we did on our walls. Of course what I am most happy about, besides the look of it, is that it is going to be easy to maintain and keep clean. Tile counter tops are truly the worst, it is such a relief to have a smooth work surface!!

Oh yes, and I would be very remiss if I didn’t tell you another very exciting part! The sink!

That’s right, it’s integrated! Did you know that you could do that now with laminate? With the Wilsonart HD you can, which was something we were unaware of until we started working with them on this project. I can’t wait to use it! It’s a bit deeper than our previous sink, but most of all, being able to wipe the counter top off into the sink without hitting a lip is going to be so nice!

As you can see, there is still much to do, but we are both pleased as punch right now!

*Wilsonart provided the counter top and sink for our project. As always, our opinions are our own.*

When we put it up, we read that you can just tile to the dry wall, which while true, makes it very hard to take down. We ended up having to take out the dry wall all together and put up new. We invested a little money and purchased a Dremel which had a bit that cut through the dry wall, making it come down in fairly neat pieces. Then we simply had to cut and hang the new dry wall in the areas where our old back splash used to be.

The flamingo lamp that you see in the first photo was used to make sure that our outlets were truly turned off. Electricity is not to be messed with! Having all the outlets off made putting up the new dry wall so much easier, even if it did take some time to prepare them. Once it was up, we put on the mud, primed it, and were good to go for the counter install!

We can’t wait to see what everything will look like once the counter and back splash are both installed. We are going to do a tile back splash again, though we haven’t picked it out yet. We figure it’s best to bring home some samples when we can compare them with the counter in our actual kitchen and lighting.

The installers at Chris and Dicks were very understanding and we have a new install date for our new Wilsonart HD counter top. They will be installed next week on the 27th! I can’t wait until we have our kitchen back in working order. We sure are tired of eating out, and it’s not even been a week yet.

In the meantime, I am researching new kitchen faucets. My dream faucet would be one of the Delta faucets with “Touch20″! Have you seen them? You can touch the faucet to turn it on. So cool. I am such a sucker for new and innovative things like that. We haven’t gone to look at faucets in person yet, but there are so many options out there, I have a feeling it will be very fun to choose one we like.