Kitchen Remodel: Before and After

There’s a reason people call the kitchen the heart of the home. We spend so much of our time here; trying new recipes, snacking around the island, watching TV from the nook. It’s definitely one of our favorite spaces and I wanted to start here for sharing the first part of our home makeover.

When Michael and I started our house hunt about a year ago, one of our priorities was a great kitchen space since we love to cook. When we decided this house was the one, the kitchen wasn’t quite as big as we were hoping for, but it was a huge upgrade from our apartment and had tons of storage, and a lot of potential with the layout. Another major bonus was the appliances that were staying with the house. The previous owner outfitted the space to be a chef’s kitchen with amazing Viking appliances and we were so excited for all those special features like the warming drawer, bread oven and griddle. 

Stylistically, we had a few ideas in mind that we wanted to use no matter the home we ended up with. We knew if we were remodeling the kitchen we wanted to add some color and fun with the cabinets by making half of them blue, but still keep things light and bright with white counters and cabinets. We also wanted to incorporate butcher block somewhere to add some warmth and a little country/rustic style to the space. Since the layout was already good, we were only working on aesthetics. We kept the original custom cabinets and had them painted and replaced the hardware to instantly upgrade the look. The color we went with was Blueprint Blue by Behr.

The kitchen didn’t really have anything wrong with it but it wasn’t our style and felt pretty dated and dark. We couldn’t wait to get rid of the granite and modernize the space with these white quartzite counters that have a bold grey vein running through. We went back and forth on different backsplash ideas for behind the stove but ended up loving our counters so much that we decided to go with the sleek look of keeping everything the same.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Michael and I both really like the look and functionality of butcher block and decided to do that for the island, and ultimately our kitchen nook too, to tie it into the space as an extension of the kitchen.

The one space that required a lot more work and creativity than the kitchen itself was the kitchen dining. When we bought the house there was a very outdated, and unsafe railing along the edge of the kitchen space above the living room. The way it was staged with a table in the area also made the space feel small and took up too much room. Michael’s mom helped us come up with the idea of built in seating and closing in the railing to be an actual wall for the bench to build on. We wanted a table to tie in to the rest of the kitchen and had this one made to match the look of the cabinets for the base and a butcher block slab on top.

We kept the cushions cream, something neutral we wouldn’t get sick of, and it is the perfect backdrop for my love of colorful pillows. Right now it’s filled with my favorite pillows from World Market that I have on the living room couch too.

BEFORE:

AFTER: