My clients moved from a small 1920s bungalow with a big kitchen to a bigger home built in the 1960s…with a small kitchen. The outdoor, living, rooms and play spaces in the new house made more sense for this family so they decided to go for the smaller kitchen and go minimal. Here is how it looked before….
As dated as this kitchen felt, it was new. The cabinets themselves were solid wood and every single one of them had custom inserts in them. We could replace them with cheap cabinets but the inserts in a cabinet can make a small kitchen feel big. So they decided to keep them.
Panel front fridges are $$$. The previous homeowner made a good choice putting one in because it helps the small kitchen not to feel like a room of appliances. It would be a budget buster to replace it.
We also knew the floor could look different with the right color palette. Yet the kitchen felt dark and cavernous.
Here is what the homeowners wanted:
- Paint Cabinets Dark and Moody
- Wall color Bright
- Make the space feel bigger
- Keep the Counters
- Keep a microwave cabinet seen aboe
- Lose the uppers on the stove wall.
- Shiplap backsplash with open shelving painted the same color as cabinets.
Here were my suggestions:
- Since we were redoing the bathroom upstairs, take down the really low ceiling in the kitchen (7 feet) and replace the 1960s plumbing to get the ceiling to 8 feet. This would fix old plumbing and raise the ceiling to normal height to make the kitchen feel bigger. Worth the investment.
- Forgo all uppers and put a small microwave on a shelf by the fridge.
You can see all the plumbing, framing and electrical issues we had going on here.
I know its hard to pay for things that are not seen but they always benefit the house and in this case, the overall look. The kitchen feels huge! Cabinet color is Ripe Olive by Sherwin Williams. Everyone is always worried about losing uppers. But the right kind of storage shelves can actually be a good use of your space.
We kept the existing granite countertops. The dark green actually helps the varied granite blend a little more. Taking the dark color all the way up to the shelves actually makes the room feel bigger when paired with the white walls and ceiling.
The plumbing made the ceiling low because it was going across the ceiling. We had to build a soffit chase on this side of the wall to reroute the plumbing. It is not ideal but the only way to get full ceiling height. Honestly. I don’t even notice it anymore. We built a custom hood to wrap around it.
We also converted one of the three drawer cabinets into a trash cabinet. So where is the pantry? Its actually an 18″ pantry filled with pull outs that is built into the wall behind these cabinets. I don’t have a good picture of it but they do have a pantry.
The black appliances blend into the dark green cabinetry. Since your eye isn’t stopped by a stark different color it makes the room feel bigger.The vertical shiplap makes the room feel taller.
Lets look at the other side of the kitchen. Here is what it looked like before:
Really just the same bleh as the other side. But this side of the kitchen had tall ceilings.
Crazy Different Right?
The Homeowner was originally going to do brass cabinet knobs. They looked great but the space just felt more cohesive with the black.
The bulk of this budget was centered around all that went into raising the ceiling… new plumbing , reframing the ceiling, and drywall. The second biggest expense was cabinet painting. Since we were not buying appliances, cabinets, counters or new floor we really used the budget wisely to move this kitchen forward and make it feel bigger.
Source List:
- Cabinet Color: Sherwin Williams Ripe Olive
- Wall Color: Sherwin Williams Pure White
- Table:
- Kitchen Light: Walmart
- Hood and Shelves: Custom
- Rug : Vintage (one similar)
- Print: Juniper Print Shop
- Black Granite (existing): Uba Tuba Pattern
I love this look and it would be easy to execute in a budget friendly way in any kitchen. Many of the builder grade homes in Wichita have the black granite. It is called Uba Tuba. I see it all the time in homes here. Everyone wants the white counters but if you have these in your home this look book can bring new life to them again. Or if you want stone counters but quartz just isn’t in the budget, don’t be afraid of black granite. Its usually $35-39 per sqft at stone centers (in Wichita). Or… budget friendly black laminte counters are normally in stock at big box stores.
What a fun project. Stay tuned. Their bathroom reveal is next!
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