Cozy Kitchen Renovation

Our kitchen renovation is finally finished and we couldn’t be happier. This is how we took our builder grade kitchen and turned it into a cozy kitchen of our dreams. We’ll break down everything we splurged on, where we saved and what we DIY’ed. 

 

The starting point:

We started here, a pretty standard builder-grade kitchen. The early 2000’s orange-toned cabinets ran in a straight line across the back of the kitchen and the two-tier countertop really left our kitchen feeling cramped and closed off from the rest of the house. 

 

My biggest goal was to add warmth and character. I did that by adding lots of textures, mixing both warm and cool colors, and decorating with vintage finds. Functionally, I wanted to find a way to have the same amount of storage space, while also adding a hood and floating shelves. 

 

Using the vertical height in the kitchen was going to be key to making the space feel larger and keeping the storage space.

 

Making the Hood:

I started by replacing the microwave with a hood. I used a recirculating vent hood inside a wooden frame to create a large hood. There are two types of hoods – recirculating hood (which will take the air, filter it, and circulate back into the home) and ventilating hoods (which will take the smoke from the stove and vent it out of your home through a duct). Because we live in an HOA unit that does not allow us to add ducts to the walls/outside of the home, we had to use a recirculating hood. However, I wanted it to have the grand look of the larger ventilating hoods. 


 Adding corbels to the bottom of the hood gave it a small dash of rustic charm. You could easily leave them off for a more modern look. For the full DIY breakdown, head to this blog post

Cabinetry:

I had seen a cabinet with wooden arch doors on Pinterest and I just knew it would be the perfect touch to my kitchen. I built out a simple cabinet box using 3/4in plywood. For the doors, I used 1x2s for the strait parts and used a router with a circle jig to cut out the arched pieces. I was able to fill with windows with a polycarbonate plastic sheet.  I just love how it turned out and it adds the perfect touch of vintage charm to the place!

To save money, I used all the same cabinet doors. I painted them with Flora by Valspar and repurposed the upper cabinets into a standing configuration. Check out this blog post to see how I achieved a smooth, professional finish on my cabinets. This allowed me to have the same amount of storage, while also adding floating shelves to the corner. I love the idea of floating shelves in the kitchen, but they can often come at expense of more functional storage. Because I focused on creating vertical storage and using the height we had in the kitchen, we didn’t have to sacrifice closed storage at all. 

 

 

In addition to the tall standing cabinet, I also added a cabinet above the refrigerator.  This is often an under used space. Filling the space above the fridge with baskets, a large cabinet or storage bins is a great way to add function. I added crown molding to the tops of all the cabinets so everything sits flush with the ceiling. 

The Finishing touches:

For the countertops, I chose a black granite with an antique finish. This finish is more matte than a traditional granite finish.


One of the last projects I did was the backsplash. This DIY stone backsplash really pulled the kitchen together and I couldn’t image not having it! I have a full DIY breakdown of the project here.

 

And finally, I used a 1/4 sheet of plywood cut into 4in strips to panel the backside of the bar. I painted it Accessible Beige by Sherwin Williams.

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