Hey! Guess what? I couldn’t resist any longer and I dove head first into my next project: the kitchen. Here are a few things you should know about me and my kitchen before I begin.
When we first started house hunting and we met our house for the first time I was totally in love…except for the kitchen. It had a poor layout and a copper tile backsplash. Mostly the layout bothered me. It’s so weird! I’m including a floor plan so you can see what I am talking about. The kitchen bothered me so much that we crossed the house off our list and continued on our house hunt.
After a week or two, our realtor insisted that we go look at our house again, but this time with a kitchen-remodeler-guy who could explain to us what the possibilites for the kitchen were. We were very concerned that walls wouldn’t be able to be moved, thus having to live with the awkward layout FOR-EV-ER. He looked at the structure and determined the wall was not load bearing, and my mind was put at ease. Jeff and I agreed the kitchen would be the first of the big projects to tackle within the first few years of moving in. Well guys, we’re 3 and a half years in and the kitchen just got put off to about the 10 year mark. This leaves me right back where I started, so I decided to compromise. The walls might not be coming down, but that backsplash is!
Here’s the floor plan so you can get a feel for what I’m talking about. There is the “main” kitchen area that has the stove, ‘fridge, sink and dishwasher. It also has newer cabinets modeled after the original cabinets to fit the style of the home (thank god they did that). There is upper cabinets above the stove, lower cabinets under the sink, and 3 upper cabinets above the sink and dishwasher area. The “main” kitchen area is the same space we have the table and eat almost every meal here in the colder months.
Then there’s the upper-right corner of the kitchen layout. This is the “pantry” area, which isn’t really a pantry but just a weird recessed part of the kitchen that has all the original cabinets (upper and lower). There is lots of storage back here – and countertops – but it is so far removed from the rest of the kitchen and has such minimal usable counter space that I rarely actually work on food prep back in there.
Lastly, off to the upper-left hand of the floor plan is the entry to the backyard and mud room. This also has cabinets for storage and hooks for coats. You might remember me organizing it in this post.
You’ll notice how much potential this space has if one day the wall separating the different sections of the kitchen came tumbling down. But for now, this is what it is. A weird chopped up, semi-functional kitchen. I can still make it pretty right?
Guys, you know I love me some photoshop, so I went ahead and photoshopped my plan together. I’m into it. We don’t have a budget to remodel and knock down walls (like I said), but I still have a butt load of white paint (All White) from Farrow in Ball in the basement.
I’ve decided to repair all of the older cabinets; some are in bad shape and need a lot of patching and sanding. All of the original hardware is covered in about 7 layers of paint. I want to strip and restore all of it. I’m going to paint all of the cabinets white, including the new ones in the “main” area of the kitchen.
I’m going to take down the copper backsplash, cross my fingers, and hope that there is decent drywall or plaster (Yikes!) back behind it. Next step will be tiling, something I have never done before but have been told by many friends that “it’s easy”. We will see about that. I’m also going to change out all the light fixtures with new light fixtures from Ikea.
Really, a lot of the decisions come down to budget. Here is a kitchen that I really like on the internet, from a home that is also really old. I think that painting and repairing old hardware is going to supply a lot of bang for $0 bucks. I also think that changing out the backsplash will do wonders.
I like the aqua paint we have currently, but really, it’s only aqua because I wanted to try make the copper backsplash feel more kitschy vintagey. Not sure I pulled that off, but I think I’d like to have a white kitchen, with a black mudroom and aqua accents.
There’s so much to do, but I do know the only way these kinda projects get done is to start on something you can’t change back. So I’ve already started painting cabinets and stripping hardware. It’s on.
All the things I need to pull it off
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▽ Foto Pendant from Ikea
▽ Eames Dowel Chairs ▽ Bekväm Stool from Ikea ▽ Hemnes Glass Door Cabinet from Ikea ▽ Subway Tile ▽ Vintage Hardware |
P.S. Have you done a project like this? What should I know, what should I change about my plan before I get in too deep? Am I crazy?
Can’t wait to see this unfold.:) We’ve got an interesting old kitchen too (meaning: our washer hookup is next to my stove) and I’m itching to tackle it and make it not look so wonky. Love the updates you’ve made to your home, and your gardening posts are just inspiring. (Inspiring me to go kill some plants, ha) Good luck on getting the backsplash going. I’ve never tiled but have also heard it’s easy. :)
Thanks Lori! Good luck with your kitchen too, and go throw some tulip bulbs in the ground this fall ;) – they’re hard to screw up.
The tile job IS easy! I bought very similar tile a few years ago, chickened out on putting it up until a few months ago. It was done in a day and looks amazing. I chose very similar looking light fixtures as well. :) Good Luck!!
Wow, really? This is so encouraging. I have a feeling with my luck it will not take a day, but even if it was a week I’d be happy. Thanks for giving me hope!
Love the ideas. I’ve been dragging my feet on doing some budget-friendly touch-ups on our kitchen, too. We also have the Hemnes cabinet from IKEA and we love it because it’s not some giant beast of a thing. Can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Dawn, Thanks for letting me know about the Hemnes cabinet. We have a wall that has nothing on it, and I think a little extra storage would be valuable (although what I’d really love is more counter space).
I look at the floor plan and all I can do is imagine the possibilities…we are struggling with a very shitty layout (you can’t open the dishwasher and the fridge door at the same time, shitty)…and although a full scale reno is a long way off, I can’t help but daydream about what we will do. Daydreaming with a tape measure and graph paper :) Good luck! I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
Yes, we are all dreamers aren’t we. I am always sketching out new plans for every nook and cranny of my house. It sucks feeling like your options are limited because of layout issues, but I guess all we can do is make the best of it unless we decide to shell out the big bucks. Good luck with your plans. I always feel like if you think about something long enough a good solution will present itself.
Yes! This is going to look so awesome when complete! Good luck with the tile, I chickened out with our subways and hired someone. You’ll do great and it’s going to look so bright and clean. Yay!
Are you loving your subway tiles? I’m gonna give the old college try, I would really like to be able to say I did it myself, but who knows, I’m the only handy one in this house and sometimes diving into a project like this is more than one girl can handle. I want to win though!
Oh I love the tile. It fits right in with my 1890’s house. I’m also going to paint the cupboards charcoal and the counters are oak. The walls will be white with a black wall in the kitchen nook. That Hemnes cabinet would be perfect for my kitchen as well…hmmm.
The plan looks great! I wouldn’t bother tiling behind the stove if that’s the wall that’s coming down in the next phase. Just take off the tin and put up something temporary to save yourself the hassle. Or, maybe that’s the wall you should experiment with tiling on until you get the hang of it.
Hey Mary! Even though it will be a lot more work, I do think I’ll tile behind the stove. Our big future renovation is so far off that I would rather put in the effort into tiling, and be happy and satisfied with an updated kitchen for a few years, rather than feel like it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. I do think that behind the stove would be the first place I would try tiling, it’s big and square and probably the easiest place to figure out the method.
Hi. I have lots of original dark wood and now I know how to compliment it. Thank you!
My question is on your kitchen cabinets. I actually have a similar layout. Separate pantry with the exact same inset farm cabinets. 4 panel up – high ceilings. I love them. I am gutting my kitchen as the original matching cabinets were sadly removed in a rehab in the 1970’s. Do you know where I can find these cabinets again. I only need 4 ( 2 sets ) to match. Thanks!