in , , ,

The Kitchen Before & After

kitchen4

I’m so excited to share our final kitchen design today. When we moved into the house a couple months ago the first thing we did was demolish the kitchen. We took the room down to the studs, changed a couple important elements, and reimagined it into a space that is light, bright and perfect for our active family. The kitchen has quickly become the centerpiece of our home. We use it for eating, homeworking, entertaining, everything! We live in this space about 70% of our awake time at home and love it so much.

before

before-and-after

Just so you can see how far we’ve come! One of the structural changes we made to the space was removing and reinstalling the window on the far side of the kitchen. It was placed so low that the wall wasn’t usable space for cabinets or appliances. It only cost a couple hundred dollars to fix, and it made the footprint of the space much brighter and more flowable. We also knocked out all the upper cabinets and took the fake ceiling soffit out to allow the kitchen to open up into the dinning area fully.

kitchen3

kitchen5

The countertops are still one of my favorite elements in the our kitchen. Here’s a post on how we laid our DIY concrete countertops. So far they are holding up great and seem virtually indestructible.

kitchen-1

kitchen-2

We chose the trendy idea of running with open shelving instead of upper cabinets. I love the light and fresh look it gives the space and collecting colorful bowls and cups to show off was great fun. I figure if we are going to have dishes out, then making them colorful is the best option. The backsplash is made up of marble tiles laid in a herringbone pattern with a jagged edge top. It was one of the only elements of the kitchen we didn’t DIY ourselves. With all the hard work put into other areas we decided having the feature tile laid perfectly was worth the instillation price.

kitchen6

kitchen-15

kitchen-18

One of my favorite spots in the house is right here. This sink, faucet combo is from my dreams! It’s big enough to hide an entire dinner party worth of dishes. Hooray for that! To add a bit of color to the space we painted the windowsills a pretty deep blue. It’s a small detail that we can easily change if we ever need to move (or change our minds), and for now the small pop of color makes me smile daily.

kitchen-16

These barstools look fun against our farmhouse wood floors. We installed Ikea cabinets throughout the entire kitchen which I would recommend forever. They are really that great. I love the huge drawers and unique details. The only issue is that the backsides of the cabinets are all unfinished which doesn’t work for an open bar set up. To solve this, we backed the cabinets with white shiplap and brought some of the bathroom farmhouse look into the kitchen. It really helps to warm up the space.

kitchen9

kitchen-14

kitchen8

kitchen12

We decided on the Frigidaire professional line of appliances for the kitchen, you can read more about our decision to go with this line and the instillation making process right here. The appliances make our entire space look sleek. After using them daily a few months I am still completely thrilled about them… Especially my party fridge.

I really adore our new kitchen and I’ve learned how important it is to have a place where I love to cook and serve in. The space is mostly done, except I’d love to add a little more greenery, maybe hanging plants.

This kitchen renovation was one of the first rooms where we bought a number of substantial elements online through Wayfair.com. I couldn’t have been happier with the quality and design style of the pieces we used. It’s really begun an entirely new way of shopping for home decor for me. The ability to see various photos of the products in real spaces, to read reviews of other customers experiences, and really research a product before I buy has been a powerful shift for me as a consumer. It’s lead to better options than if I’d been flying blind somewhere in person.

Here are links to all the sources we used in the space: AppliancesSinkFaucet | Ceiling Light | Shelves | Cabinets | Colorful Bowls | Bar Stools | Counter Tops | Backsplash

PS. The rest of the home renovation here.

(Photography ©A Subtle Revelry by Erin Holland).

10 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Your kitchen turned out so beautifully. I would love to know what your experience was moving the window. We have a similar situation. I’m thinking it will be much more than a few hundred dollars because I’m not sure if I can really just move the window up and reinstall, aren’t there header beams etc most likely? And how to patch the outer wall where the window moved up? We have aluminum siding, so the only thing I can think of is to build a window planter box.

    • Amanda, Thanks so much! For the window, we purchased a shorter window than the origional one and lined up the top of it to be exactly the same as the last window so we didn’t need to replace the header or any of that – that does get expensive quickly! For the outside, we actually thought about a planter box :), but ended up just having the outside refinished with paint to match the rest of our siding. It probably depends on what your siding is and how easy it would be to match up the outside. Our window cost about $100 at Home Depot and the guy who installed it charge us about $300. Hope that helps!

  2. Beautiful kitchen!! Love the stools and have been searching for something similar! Noticed they are from Wayfair but can’t find the exact ones. Can you share the link?

  3. Great work there is a huge change in kitchen before and after,the designing is very beautiful.Thanks for sharing your work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *