Rescuing Our Kitchen from the 1970s

Are those fondue pots on the wallpaper?
Yes. Yes they are.

We've been planning to do a kitchen makeover for a long time now -- since the moment we bought our house three years ago, in fact. But we kept putting it off, partly because everyone says you should wait to see how you use the room -- it will tell you what it needs and what it doesn't as you live in it -- and partly because, well, we knew it would require a daunting amount of both hard work and money. 

And oh my, did it ever.

It's true, though, what they say about discovering what the room really needs. Our early, more ambitious plans were pretty much scrapped in favor of keeping the layout almost as is... we found it actually worked quite well for us. (Of course, cost also played a role in the decision.) What's even weirder is that we started growing accustomed to -- almost fond of -- the garish, muddy yellows of our ca. 1974 wallpaper, wood paneling, and linoleum.

Almost.

Anyway, when our crappy sink sprung a leak over the summer, we finally decided it was time to get down to business. It was exhausting, and stressful, and grueling. But, as we approach completion -- we still have a few finishing touches to take care of, but we're nearly there -- it was pretty rewarding, too:

So in case you're curious, or would one day like to do a budget makeover of your own Kotter-era kitchen, here's how it went down.