Kitchen Spectacular

If you’ve been reading my blog or have read my story of a short sale you might already know by now that our house had a some crazy, icky things going for it when we moved in. First was the grodie bathroom, and second was the grodie – but mostly non-existing kitchen. Check out these before pictures from when we first looked at the house

soon-to-be our banquette corner...

this is on the other side of the kitchen from the "soon-to-be" banquette corner

Okay, so by now you are wondering- “how could they buy a house with a kitchen like this?!”. Well, we had vision. Lots and lots of vision. The first step was ripping up the vinyl floor and demo-ing out the existing cabinets and countertop.

We sanded down the original wood floors (and by “we” I mean our contractor!) they are wide planked douglas fir floors that have 85 years of wear and tear on them. But, we actually liked them that way… they have a sort of rustic quality that works. We had them stained a dark cherry color. Unfortunately, I don’t have any good photos of this process (but if you scroll down you can see how they turned out in the “after” photos).

Next we went to Ikea to look for our cabinets (and as it turned out most of our appliances). Ikea may not have the the best cabinets on the market, but you cannot beat the price and honestly the quality is pretty decent. The cabinets we went with have solid wood doors and faces and composite wood frames. They come in so many different configurations that we were actually able to fit everything pretty seamlessly into our space (which is no small feat for an old house that has funky uneven walls and strangely located outlets). All of the doors and drawers have dampers which means when you slam them shut they automatically slow down before closing completely… um, it’s kind of amazing.

Next the installation of the cabinets and the fan hood. Although there was a small vent in the ceiling already, it wasn’t  in the right spot or sufficient enough for a modern day fan hood… remember this is an 85 year old house! So a vent had to be made in the ceiling to fit with the hood we purchased.

We also bought some major appliances at Ikea which are made by Whirlpool: stove, built-in oven, fan hood, and dishwasher. We went with Ikea for a few reasons – 1. The price was right 2. Whirlpool is pretty reliable and has a good reputation 3. their appliances are made to fit the dimensions of their cabinetry – very helpful when designing the layout 4. It was super convenient to get everything in one place and have it all delivered at once!

We originally bought two double cabinets for either side of the fan hood, but when our contractors started installing them, they noticed one important thing… the windows on the adjacent wall are casement style and would have slammed into the left side of the double cabinet and not only looked awkward, but would have prevented the two from being open at the same time, not an option in the summer time! So I took it back and got the single cabinet … see what we did later on to make that side behind the window look not-so-lonely…

Here is a look at the lower cabinets being installed, the dishwasher and the farmhouse sink (which I love!)
We had our contractor recess a little space on one side of the wall so that our refrigerator would have more the built-in look that we wanted. Plus, having it built-in saves precious, precious kitchen floor space!

Here is our fridge! Jon was adamant about having an automatic water and ice dispenser. I found this GE Profile on Craigslist… and while I am not one for buying a used refrigerator (coated with other people’s old crusties), We actually got it  from this amazing woman who sells refurbished and overstock appliances from her home in Ontario California. Random…but she has quite the business. Anyway we figured it couldn’t hurt to check it out (plus I always meet the most amazing people through Craigslist… and Ophelia was no exception)  When we got there we found this basically new (still had styrofoam in some drawers) fridge that fit our measurements, was stainless steel and had an automatic ice and water dispenser. Originally a $2500 fridge, we scored it for $850 – plus she delivered it!

Here is the fridge after it was fitted into the nook.

We didn’t have it entirely recessed because the space behind the kitchen is a little laundry room that eventually we’d like to turn into a tiny half bath (so we wanted to preserve enough space for that in case we ever get around to it).

Next… the counter. We splurged on some pretty nice granite. I wanted granite and our contractor would only work with pre-fabricated slabs, because he wasn’t experienced with straight slabs (plus that was too cost-prohibitive for us anyway). We searched and searched, but most places had the same generic pre-fabricated colors that you can get at Home Depot. We finally found a place with a more unique selection and we chose “Golden Flakes” which I believe is mined in Brazil. The colors pushed us to do an accent wall in a orange-ish brown which we really love.

Here are some photos of the kitchen “almost” complete…

My parents in NYC were renovating their kitchen around the same time and so we got lucky. They sent us all the hardware from their old cabinets since their new cabinetry was going to be hardware free. We also got a garbage disposal and a small flat screen TV!

While this kitchen is lovely… there was one thing missing. As Candice Olsen from “Divine Design” would say we needed to add the “jewelry”. Yes… glass tile back splash. The granite set the palate for the back splash tiles – we found them on sale at Home Depot for $5 a square foot – you literally can’t find glass tiles for less than that anywhere! This project was Jon’s baby and took him several long weekends to get it just right. Here is one shot of the tiles going up

And here are photos of the final product – (minus the banquette, which I will put in another post altogether when it gets installed!)

Notice the framed print on the left, behind the window? We’ve had it forever – it is by one of Jon’s friends from art school (okay, an ex-girlfriend…) but I really like it and the frame matched the cabinets perfectly!

We had a 9 inch space left over on the left side of dishwasher – to big for just a cover panel and too small for a standard cabinet. I found the 9 inch stainless steel shelving unit and little acrylic bins at Ikea. It is the perfect spot for spices, measuring cups, recipes and take-out menus.

And there’s more to come! The other half of the kitchen will have the built in banquette  – when that’s done I’ll do a post on how it turned out and also some little projects we did with the original built-in’s on the adjacent wall!

Stay tuned!