The colder weather has arrived and between school lunches, crockpot meals, after-school snacks, and all the like I'm finding myself in the kitchen A LOT. I'm not sure I ever really understood the kid/hours in the kitchen correlation but I think it's 1 kid = 297 hours/day or something like that. The kid-to-shower ratio weirdly has an opposite equation, I'm not really sure what it comes out to but it's not trending upward.
I've been especially thankful for our little kitchen lately. It's not magazine-worthy despite my hand-painting all of the cabinets while 6 months pregnant with Winnie. But's it tailored to our needs, for now, it's pretty and quirky and you won't see another one like it. I spend a lot of time there and when it's clean, it sings!
Like many of us, I had an idea of what I hoped the kitchen would be, and after drawing plans with another designer friend for the very-fancy-kitchen-of-my-dreams, we quickly knew that was going to be some time down the road. But our kitchen was in a really bad way. Dark smelly old pine cabinets, solid for sure but gross. Sheet vinyl floors with lots of tears and stains. Weird red backsplash tile and a range hood that had to be 5'3" high. All of the appliances were on their last leg and storage was hard to come by. So we got creative, I made a simple plan, similar to what I would do for a virtual client, and then we got to work and pulled it together. The one thing we did not touch was the vintage Starburst Formica countertops. They had a lot of life left, and I've always loved mid-century kitsch in my own personal aesthetic so we knew we could make it work for now. We tried to incorporate elements that would work with them, not against them, and so 1950's Country-Grandma house it was for our new plan!
Our update involved
Removing a length of cabinets above the island to open up to the living room and welcome all of the natural light.
Painting the cabinets
Spray painting the vintage hardware. They came in a size that was hard to replace, so as opposed to filling holes, we embraced their kitsch and painted them.
Replacing the faucet. Nothing fancy.
Adding in a small sconce to the weird weight-bearing wall to give it a little purpose and context.
Replacing the torn sheet vinyl with checkered marble look vinyl tiles.
Replacing the wall tile with some pretty subway tiles I found at the architectural salvage for $25.
Updating the fridge and dishwasher. Nothing fancy, but they fit the small space and work!
Kirk retrofitted the cabinets above the electric range to raise it about 10", and added a new hood and cooktop. This meant the hood now doesn't block half of your view of the range.
He also turned one weird cabinet into a hidden microwave solution, once less appliance in our faces.
We added in some beadboard on the blank main wall and put some vintage decorative plates above it for something fun and pretty. We also wrapped the peninsula in decorative beadboard.
Finally I sewed a simple skirt to provide a little texture and to disguise the trash and storage under a short cabinet/desk in the kitchen.
If you like a before and after, click through to see how our kitchen changed from our first tour of the house (how we came to purchase this home is another story) to the last day-ish of the face lift.
It's quite literally the heart of our home, and it serves us in this season of little kids, old dogs, and new chickens. It's a very "un-kitchen" kitchen, nothing pristine or really all that new, but warm and clean and cozy. I added lamp lighting in a couple of corners and honestly in the winter months, they make a huge difference in my mood.
Now that many of us will be staying put in our homes for a while thanks to a changing housing market, making the most of them with what we can do is so important. I hope this encourages you to think about some investments of time and energy you can put into your home!
-Ashley
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