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Thursday, March 26, 2015

Kitchen Refresh or What Goes Around Comes Around


When we bought our house twenty years ago, the kitchen was not one of its selling points.  If we were to list it for sale tomorrow, the kitchen still would not be a selling point.  It is a small kitchen with three doorways and three windows, so there's not much room for actual kitchen.  When we moved in, the kitchen had white painted cabinets and woodwork, a marvelous marble counter, yellow checked wallpaper, a wall-mounted farmhouse sink with attached drainboard (no dishwasher), an old linoleum floor, a gas stove in the middle of the room (if the oven door was open, it blocked the walkway in and out of the room), and a smallish avocado green refrigerator next door in the butler's pantry.

The first improvement was to have the stove turned so that the oven door wouldn't be a danger to our two small children if they came running into the kitchen at the wrong moment.  After a couple of years, I had an architect acquaintance come over to give us some ideas of what we could do to improve the layout.  Knowing we had a moderate budget and couldn't add on, he was pretty much stumped.  After much thought (literally it took us several years to think of what to do), we finally had an aha moment.   We relocated the pantry doorway from the kitchen to the butler's pantry.  So the refrigerator was able to move from the butler's pantry into the actual kitchen.  Hooray!  We also extended the wall maybe three feet or so to make it one flat wall instead of a jig-jog.

The new (year 2000) wall being constructed.  You can see see the avocado fridge on the left.  Where the
refrigerator was is now the doorway to the pantry.  On the right, the farmhouse sink with painted cabinets.

We had a cabinetmaker make cabinets for the new wall and also for the sink area.  We removed the farmhouse sink -- it was cool, but there was no way to put a dishwasher under it -- and installed a new cabinet there with a deep sink and a dishwasher.  Another hooray.  We did save the old wall-mounted Chicago faucet, which I love.  We stripped all the woodwork and cabinet boxes and had inset yellow pine doors made for the existing cabinets.  We were unwilling to replace the main original cabinet because of the old marble counter.  We feared breaking it if it were removed.  Yellow pine was chosen to match the existing woodwork. We uncovered the old pine floor, which we sanded and refinished.  I found a fun graphic chicken wire wallpaper for above and we hired a friend to install white subway tile below the molding throughout the room.  Not knowing what to do with the new counter by the sink (marble seemed pricey and also hard to match the original piece), we decided to have it tiled also.

So the kitchen was refreshed.  But mistakes were made.  Yes, mistakes were made.  The pine floor didn't last long at all.  It was too fragile and chippy and hard to clean.  An easy-to-mop vinyl soon covered the floor.  Now fifteen years later, we finally have gotten around to correcting some of the other mistakes.  Granted, those mistakes weren't obvious for several years.  Like the warping of the pine doors.  Like how hard it is to keep a tile counter clean (grout lines!).
Warped doors
From a distance, even after fifteen years, our kitchen didn't look bad.  It was in keeping with the style of the house and all that.

Before the latest refresh

Still, I was ready for a change -- an improvement.  The timing was right: Our son has been home
Unfinished doors
since graduating college in December, so I had a willing and competent helper.  First, he built all new plywood doors.  We elected to go with overlay doors this time to (we hope!) eliminate the risk of warping.  He also built three new drawers to replace the original ones seen in the picture above.  They had no slides, just wood on wood, and I frequently had to clean sawdust out of the lower drawers.

Painted doors and new hardware (poor lighting)
Though I was sad to see it go, we stripped off the chicken wire wallpaper.  It was old and needed to be removed.  We sanded the finish off the cabinets and primed and painted the cabinets and doors.  I was pretty set on the type of paint for the cabinets, Sherwin-Williams ProClassic water-based acrylic-alkyd, because I wanted something durable.  There was a lot of agonizing, however, over paint colors.  I painted samples on boards and foam core and we moved them around the room for a couple of days.  Finally, we decided it wasn't going to matter too much between three shades of very similar white for the cabinets and just picked one (Westhighland White).  The walls were painted with Behr Marquee in Studio Clay.  The Dutch door got a coat of Valspar Reserve color matched to Behr Winter in Paris.  We left all the trim natural wood.  

The cabinets were painted and awaiting doors when I decided I really DID have to replace that tile counter.

We replaced the old brass hardware with nickel hinges and handles.  After some debate and online research, we decided to tear off the tile countertop and replace it with butcher block, which we sealed with Waterlox.  We found some butcher block at a reasonable price and it is very DIY friendly.  I also decided to leave the doors off the large wall cabinet, and so far, I'm really liking the openness and ease of grabbing a plate or a spice jar.  Overall, I'm very pleased.  In a perfect world (i.e., one with unlimited funds), we would also have replaced the white appliances with stainless steel, but that definitely wasn't in the budget.  For a relatively modest sum, I have an updated kitchen that is fresh and bright.  And we're back to white painted cabinets.  What goes around comes around I guess.


17 comments:

  1. Your kitchen turned out beautifully. Mine needs a redo also, but I have no clue what to do. The husband does not want me to paint the cabinets, which are yellowing. Need to replace Formica countertops, vinyl floor, wall backing, brown sink....the list is forever long. And, of course, on a tight budget.

    Ideas?

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  2. It looks so clean and fresh! Love the white on the cabinets!

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  3. You have such a charming period kitchen, Lynette. Your woodwork is gorgeous and works nicely with your white painted cabinets. And a dutch door- lucky you! I think all older homeowners have had to reconfigure their kitchens to accommodate modern appliances. Our fridge was in a cubby in our back entry, but a previous owner borrowed space from a coat closet to make a new cubby for the fridge in our kitchen. Your son is a very talented carpenter, and the doors and drawers he built look original to your kitchen! Your marble and butcherblock countertops work well together, too. Isn't it wonderful to be "done" with a room?! Thanks for sharing and enjoy!

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  4. Good job on all the updating! We got our kitchen gutted and redone about 10 years ago and I sure do love it. ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

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  5. My kind of kitchen ! ....and, for the record, all my projects must be done a budget...great photos.

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  6. Wow---you all really did a great job with what you originally had to work with... I LOVE your kitchen... One thing about renovations is that once you finish one area, another one needs it... Better to take plenty of time --and stay within budgets... Proud of you. Congrats.
    Hugs,
    Betsy

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  7. I am really impressed with this makeover! Your cabinets are beautiful...they look like brand-new cabinets! Mine are the 1980's oak so desperately need an update. But there are so many of them...22, I believe. I just can't imagine tackling that kind of project, especially when I don't know what the heck I'm doing. Maybe one day I will get brave enough to try painting just the two little cabinets above the fridge and see how it looks.

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  8. Your kitchen turned out very beautiful and bright. Fantastic job!!

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  9. Wow, it really turned out beautifully. I love that marble counter, so glad you are working around it.
    Hugs,
    Meredith

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  10. It looks just beautiful - bright, cheerful, cozy. A wonderful place to cook, the heart of the home.

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  11. Thank you for the tour. What a life your kitchen has had. And your son is so handy and helpful. I do love the new look; it looks very fresh, clean and bright xx

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  12. It looks great! And I really like the open shelves.

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  13. I love it, but I am crying over that sink. I have been looking everywhere for old sinks! Glad to know that the butcher block is DIY friendly, as that's what we plan to use.

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  14. What a lovely home you have. Your kitchen looks great with all of the changes you've made. The new counter top and cabinets really brighten things up. Love your door too. Blue paint is my favorite lately.

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  15. I love your white cabinets. I also love your sink very very much! Great to see your renewed kitchen and I can relate with the French cottage kitchen. I'm thinking of butchers block worktop for there. Just catching up on your posts. So glad your blogging again! X

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