We’re just about done renovating our kitchen (finally)! While we’re proud of all the work we’ve done so far, we have a few regrets..

1. Not lining our drawers sooner.

You knew better, Sarah!

This is such a simple and inexpensive task (it only takes about five minutes per drawer to measure and cut) yet I waited two years to do this. Two years! Why?! I now have water stains on the bottom of most of my drawers that I’ll never be able to get out. Big regret!

We used this roll of $20 Drawer Liner from Amazon.

2. Not using tarps enough

Any kitchen renovation means endless trips to the garage and back. Lots of dust, mortar, grout, paint splatter, and debris on the ground. It was no big deal on our tile – but I wish I would have done a better job protecting our hardwood floor. No matter how much we mop it, it just doesn’t look the same as it did before we began.

Note to self for next time – USE TARPS!

3. Not Insulating

We tore the walls out over two years ago and it was the first major renovation we’d done in our home. The rest of our house doesn’t have insulation, so we just skipped over it. We were new to DIY – it was a rookie mistake! We definitely should have taken the opportunity to insulate. Live and learn!

4. Not adding more outlets

In my original design, I was hoping to keep our espresso maker to the left of the sink…too late now. I wish we would have added just one more outlet in that section. It would have come in handy.

5. Buying such an inexpensive dishwasher

We got this panel ready dishwasher from Z-line for about $800. Honestly, we just don’t love it. I wish I would have done a little more research and spent more money on a nicer model. Now it’s fully built-in, and in order to replace it, we would have to do some demo (boo!). We plan to stick with it for now, but I do wish we bought something higher-end.

The finish line is so close we can almost taste it. We are installing the last few cabinet doors this week and are just waiting on hardware to ship. I hope this post helps you avoid some of the mistakes we made!