Hello, and welcome to Design Weekend!
Today I will introduce you to my kitchen renovation (not the house we live in now). But first, it is important to take a peek at the floorplans from the Before and After. We moved the refrigerator (well, it actually stayed in the same location but it turned 90 degrees, which involved taking off the frig door and making it open in the other direction) and we moved a cabinet.This was because there are two doors to other rooms (back patio, and also basement rec room) right next to each other and it was very congested before. The simple swap on the floorplan improved the flow tremendously.
BEFORE This is a picture of our old kitchen at our first house in Crazy Town (when we moved here from California). We were stuck with this sad excuse for a kitchen for over two years before we ponied up and tore it all out. As you can see, the cupboards do not touch the ceiling. Also, the sink is ugly. And the countertops were cheap laminate. There was not much we liked.
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| Before, kitchen sink area |
AFTER Shazam! We changed all those things! Undermount stainless sink (do you LOVE the new sink faucet?!? It was a splurge, but worth it). Black honed granite counters. All new semi-custom wood cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling, and maybe even the sun. Fun fact: new microwave had vent hood built in.
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| After, kitchen sink area |
BEFORE As you can see (below), there was nowhere to set a hot pan on the left of the stove. Who designed that-- a guy??
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| Before, ugly stove area |
AFTER Not only is there a counter to put things to the left of the stove (designed by my new best friend Jason, ahem, a guy-- but most likely a gay guy-- at Lowe's kitchen design center), but also the cupboard below the counter is a new pull-out trash! Yay! And, check out the black paint on the door to the back screened porch! Totally my idea! Fun fact: that corner cabinet on the bottom right is one of those secret lazy Susan things. Best idea ever. Fun fact two: that upper cabinet on the far left with no handle? actually a fake-out because it is really a cookbook shelf (open shelving) on the side (if you were standing by that black door and faced that cupboard sideways).
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| After, improved lovely stove area |
BEFORE Go back up to the floorplans (way at top of blog) and look at the Before drawing where the refrigerator and cabinet are. This is what you are looking at. That door on the right there is the door to the basement. It is a shorter door than the black door (pictured above). And yes, there is an open bottle of wine sitting out on the counter in broad daylight. Don't judge.
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| Before, area on side where basement door is |
AFTER As you can see, we changed the layout of the space.
Fun fact: those great pics on the wall are from (where else?) Target.
Fun fact two: those hydrangeas on the counter were from our garden!
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| After, hardly recognizable, same side with basement door |
BEFORE This is the wall looking back toward the formal dining room. Ack, you can really see the hideous tile floors in this picture.
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| Before, the red paint seemed like a good idea at the time ... |
AFTER Does it make more sense now? The frig and cabinet are flipped to that other wall. Those lower cupboards open up to reveal a full-on pull-out drawer extravaganza to house all my baking stuff. I love love love to bake. Fun fact: MOV likes hardwood floors. Fun fact two: that is a really old coffee maker. From Target. (We have a new one now.) Fun fact three: all the drawer and cabinet pulls are from Restoration Hardware. Fun fact four: yep, that was a baby gate (for Short!).
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| After, I loved my new kitchen! Yay! |
AFTER Another after shot, this time a close-up of those gorgeous counters. Fun fact: that crystal bowl was a wedding gift from Tiffany's. I kept the blue box. Fun fact two: the entire reno, from tearing out 100% of the existing kitchen down to the bare walls and then putting in all new everything (plumbing, floors, cabinets, counters) took under 14 days. I kid you not. Fun fact three: we ate a lot of take-out food for those two weeks, not fun with a toddler and baby.
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| After, close-up |
I hope you enjoyed the MOV tour of our old kitchen. The new owner Polly lives there now, and I hope she likes all the little touches that I put into it.
MOV
ps--In case you are wondering, the paint color (on the walls) is by Benjamin Moore, "Wheeling Neutral." It is the ideal beigey tan color to use in any situation as it has zero peach to it, no greenish tint, no yellow. It looks absolutely fabulous in ANY light. It is the perfect neutral to go with a nice jet black or with a crisp white, or even a dramatic red. It is a very flattering "non"-color. You literally cannot go wrong with this color. We have even painted the study at our new house this same color, with the windows trimmed in black. FYI: the cabinets came the color you see, an antique ivory. We did not paint them.
I would cook in that nice kitchen. I just love before and afters.
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear Mollie! If I still HAD that kitchen, I would definitely invite you to cook. That kitchen hosted many a frozen pizza.
DeleteYay! I love a quick, less-expensive (ie not moving walls or ripping out plumbing and electricity, both of which cost about a ZILLION dollars, and you'd think with all that money they charge, plumbers could buy pants that fit!) reno. It's gorge!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the accolades! (although even though no moving of walls was involved, it ended up costing more than my first car + second car)
DeleteI'm really enjoying this new line of posts. Go on, go on!
ReplyDeletethank you, Famous Magazine Writer!
DeleteI am lovin your style. New house, old house, LA house. All of it. This is fun!We don't even have to click over to a design blog, we can just stay in our comfy spots.
ReplyDeleteside note: I have two little blue Tiffany bags/boxes also.Don't know what I need them for, but they are hard to throw away aren't they.
Cute kitchen!
Thank you, J.R.! And yes, those Tiffany bags/ boxes. Someone once gave me a gift card for Tiffany for $200 and I went in there so jazzed........... turns out, you can buy a box of stationary or a very tiny picture frame. Or a key chain.
DeleteI used to buy and sell homes and loved remodeling them. That is one thing in my life I miss. You seem to have the "knack" for those things, too. Everything looks amazing!
ReplyDelete*blushes* Thank you, Tracie! Now the pressure is on for whatever design thing I will reveal next weekend!
Deleteps-- how did you ever work flipping houses into your busy schedule with writing movie pilots and wrangling alligators?????????
ps-- are you allowed to tell me the names of your books over here in the relative safety and Ritz Carlton-like poshness and comfort of my blog??? Here, have a seat on my new leather couch while I get you a glass of $80 wine...........
DeleteOh my lord! Your kitchen is IMMACULATE! (Goes and burns down own kitchen in shame)
ReplyDeleteLily, my darling, you crack me up!
DeleteI was teaching 3rd grade the other day and we were going over the writing concept of exaggeration and I said, "If you say 'that man was soooo tall that his head touched the ceiling'? see, that is not really true--it is exaggeration." Now, in retrospect, it's clear to me that I should have said, "Lily's writing. All of it. Go read it, that is the best example of exaggeration."
Burn your kitchen down? Come on. You would NEVER do that in real life. Using a sledgehammer is infinitely more gratifying than arson.
xxo
MOV
That was a brilliant idea to make the kitchen more functional! I lived in an apartment once in which you could not open the dishwasher and the oven door at the same time. It was in DIRE need of some rearrangement. Looks fantastic! And, why is your kitchen so dadgum clean (uncluttered)?
ReplyDelete