If you follow us on Instagram, you may have seen on our stories that we are living in a bit of a construction zone at our new house. By that, I mean we are basically camping out in our unfinished basement amidst stacks of boxes while the main floor gets gutted and re-constructed. Currently, nothing is in order and everything is chaos. I know we will look back on these times and laugh with fondness at the month or two when our “kitchen” was a console table with a microwave under it and a grill in the yard, and our “bedroom” was a mattress on the concrete basement floor.
That said, I have such a clear vision for how awesome this house is going to be when it’s done that it keeps me motivated in the “in-between.” I wanted to share with you a little bit of our kitchen plan today in hopes that you can catch the vision for how fabulous it’s going to be.
You’ve seen it in the “before” house tour, but here is what the kitchen looked like when we bought the house.
It was in worse shape than it appears. Before selling the house, the previous owners just painted over everything to hide how bad it was. LIterally. In the bathroom, they just painted EVERYTHING white. The tub, the wall tile, the countertop, the vanity. Rather than replacing, they painted. So this kitchen is just a really old, rickety kitchen painted white.
We knew we were going to start over completely, so out came EVERYTHING. We ripped it all to studs, took out the insulation, re-wired all the electrical. This is what it looks like today.
Up next, we will be reinstalling drywall and insulation, and then we can start building the cabinets! Yay.
So, let me take you on an imaginative journey into the future of our kitchen two months from now when everything is done. First off…here is the moodboard I created with some inspiration for the space.
Now let’s talk details…
I. Layout
The cabinets will remain on the same walls, but one big change we are making is that we are closing in that door in the kitchen (and adding french doors in the adjacent dining room), so that we can extend the counter space. The fridge will also be along that wall.
We also ripped a hole in the left side wall and we are borrowing from the office closet on the other side to create a pantry. The interior of the pantry will be lined with wood paneling and there will be a vintage sliding door to go over it.
II. Cabinets
Here is the cabinet mockup from IKEA that we created with their kitchen planner before purchasing all of our cabinets. Now this is NOT true to color and obviously some key components are missing (like open shelving, a range hood, and part of the island which I drew in).
We went with lots of drawers for the base cabinets to maximize storage.
We got all of the cabinets from IKEA, but the doors, drawer fronts, panels, and filler pieces are coming from a company called Semihandmade which specializes in doors and drawer fronts for IKEA cabinets. They are real wood, and they are going to be beautiful. We went with the DIY Shaker Style cabinets like this photo from Sarah Sherman Samuel and then we will paint them to be the colors of our choosing.
The perimeter cabinets will all be white with some natural wood floating shelves in one corner. The island will be a moody gray/blue. I was inspired by lots of kitchens I’ve seen…starting with this one. Isn’t the contrast lovely? I love a white kitchen, but I want to make sure we have some interest as well so it doesn’t feel monochromatic.
We are going for an island shape like this photo below which will allow for two or three barstools for seating.
III. Countertops
I love the look of marble, but I don’t love the maintenance of marble. After doing concrete countertops at our last house and being frustrated with the maintenance factor of a porous material, I’m confident that I need something with the lowest maintenance possible. We are therefore thinking about doing a marble-esque quartz–although we haven’t picked the exact color yet.
IV. Backsplash
One place we are willing to save a few pennies is on the backsplash, so we are going with a simple white subway tile from countertop to ceiling.
V. Ceiling
We are replacing all the drywall on the walls, and that’s just fine, but one thing we absolutely HATE is replacing ceiling drywall. Unfortunately, the ceiling isn’t in great condition so something has to be done. I was bemoaning the idea of hanging ceiling drywall when I saw the beadboard ceiling that ChrisLovesJulia recently did on their Lowes Spring Makeover Challenge. The perfect solution! So we are going to try this on our ceiling for some added interest.
VI. Floors
We ripped up all the ugly linoleum in favor of beautiful, rich hardwoods to match the hardwoods that were in the rest of the house.
VII. Lighting and accessories.
I want to mix in some natural wood tones in the sliding pantry door, barstools and floating shelves. I’m still toying with the metals that I’m going to use. I love all the gold that is in style right now, but I also want to go for classic, so right now I’m planning on brushed nickel for the faucet and to match the stainless steel appliances, and matte black for the hardware and the finish on the pendant lights.
Again, here is that drawing and moodboard to refresh your memory! I can’t wait to show you all the end result!
