Our kitchen will be undergoing a transformation over the next six weeks. This has been a long time coming! We bought our house almost six years ago and one of the first things I wanted to do was replace the countertops! The time has finally come, and now that it is here, I realize there are lots more things
we need I want for our kitchen in addition to new countertops.
This is my first attempt at a kitchen renovation and it didn't take long for me to realize that things can snowball very quickly! I have struggled to keep things in check and stick to the budget! I will share some of our "before" pictures and fill you in on the plan. Nothing is set in stone (except for the stone countertops, haha). I would love your feedback or suggestions! Just please don't suggest marble countertops or a Viking stove or sub-zero fridge. :) We real estate appraisers would call that a "superadequacy"...meaning an over-improvement for our house/neighborhood.
Wade Sturkie from E.D.'s Paint & Decorating is helping me and he is wonderful. He has made some insightful suggestions that I had not thought of. I guess I used to think that decorators were just for the rich & famous but since Wade gets better rates from the different vendors we are actually coming out less than what we originally expected! Which gave us the opportunity to make one pretty big change in the kitchen which I'll get to shortly. Also Wade passes along his decorator's discount at the appliance store which is huge -- I don't have to pay retail. It has been nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and I have to admit that I've enjoyed going granite shopping and appliance shopping with Wade.
I took these pictures a couple of months ago...hence the Easter decor. These are by no means "staged"...I am far from a neat freak and we have stuff on the counters almost all of the time. Believe it or not, we
live in our kitchen.
Our circa 1989 kitchen in all her glory.
I shouldn't be so harsh...when we bought the house the kitchen was painted hunter green below the chair rail with a large scale fruit motif on gold background wallpaper above the chair rail. When we painted this room the first time we discovered some really breathtaking (in a bad way) wallpaper underneath the giant fruit. Think light blue background with mauve flowers. Also, the floors were fake hardwood in the kitchen and it was very obvious they were fake because they met the real hardwoods from the dining room. So, we have painted the walls and we have put in hardwood floors and now its time to tackle the countertops and cabinets.
The basics...we are painting the cabinets and replacing the doors/drawer fronts/hardware. The new doors will have hidden hinges.
Cabinet color - trying to decide between Benjamin Moore Sundial:
Or BM Fennel Seed (one shade darker on the same card):
Wall color - BM Boardwalk:
Granite color (this might change) - Giallo Ornamental. Originally I thought I wanted black granite...I looked at some in Black Pearl and it is absolutely gorgeous, especially when paired with light cabinets...but I've been told it is hard to keep clean and shows streaks and smudges. When looking at granite samples, I actually preferred New Venetian Gold, but when we went to the granite yard to look at the slabs I preferred the Giallo Ornamental. I still need to go back to see the new slabs they have to confirm my decision but it will be something close to this.
As much as I would love all stainless steel appliances, I really can't justify buying a new fridge, dishwasher and cooktop when ours work just fine. Also I've heard that stainless shows smudges and little fingerprints. So we will stick with our black appliances. The other thing I would love but just can't justify is a gas stove. Maybe in our next house. :)
I'm not really sure if this is the original layout of the kitchen because you'll notice that the lovely light gray/dark white countertops along the perimeter of the kitchen don't match the green countertop on the island. Regardless, I've learned that I'm not a fan of the cooktop stove in the island. I thought I liked it...but after living and cooking here for almost 6 years I realize that I have very little workspace and when we have company over I have very little serving space. So we are doing a little switcheroo and I'll do my best to explain it...
Our cooktop stove works just fine so we will not replace it, but we are moving it to the wall where the oven and microwave are now. This will open up that length of cabinets and make it one long countertop with the stove somewhat centered. We'll add a vented microwave above (our current microwave needs to be replaced anyway because the screen is shot).
We will reconfigure some cabinets on the other side of the kitchen for...drumroll...a double oven!! This is something I am very excited about.
This frees up the island which will be a great workspace and serving space. We are also adding a bookshelf to the end of the island and wrapping the rest of the island in beaded board. We are getting rid of the unattractive and purposeless overhang.
We are painting the island an "accent color" - Benjamin Moore Chelsea Gray. Wade really wanted me to do all the cabinets this color and although it was very tempting I ended up chickening out. It seems too drastic and I worry that they would be too dark or start looking dull or maybe its a trend that will pass. Even though Genevieve on HGTV says that all painted cabinets should be painted Chelsea Gray...I just don't think I can go there! What do y'all think?
On the wall where the sink is we are removing the piece of wood that connects the cabinets along the top and adding a pendant light. The upper left cabinet will have seeded glass doors. We are adding an undermount sink and replacing the faucet. The fluorescent lights will be replaced...we will have to get creative with this because M & R's bedroom is above the kitchen. I'm not sure yet what we'll do there. Suggestions?
As much as I would love a farmhouse sink with apron front, it really isn't practical because they are typically shallower with one big bowl. And I don't live in a farmhouse. And (most importantly) they are expensive! Wade has suggested a granite composite sink. Does anyone know anything about these? This is the one I like...
The same style of sink in a darker color for a better visual...
Bay window/table area:
We are adding a banquette/bench seat with cushion in the bay window. It will have flip up lids providing much-needed extra storage space. We have lots of stuff. Our kitchen is by no means tiny, but we don't have a pantry and we could use the extra storage space. Plus I just like a cozy bench seat. Eventually I would like to replace the kitchen table with a pedastal table to give easier access to the bench seat, but we will make do with the table we have for now.
I guess we will keep the dog too. :)
Our house was built in 1989 and it has lots of features that I really love that you don't find in most newer homes...like the solid hardwood doors. The doors are great, but the honey golden stain is very...1989. We are having all the interior doors painted white to match the white trim on the door frames. Okay, technically not part of the kitchen, but while the painters are here they might as well go to town on the doors, right?
The process has started...the cabinet doors are on order...I'm kind of dreading the next 6 weeks but can't wait to have it all done!
