The Big Kitchen Reveal

Posted on February 1, 2012

This day is finally here! Our kitchen is D-O-N-E. It’s been many months in the making, so let’s do a quick recap…

Here’s how it looked when we moved in:

Pink walls…

Beige formica counters…

 

Outdated chrome and brass fixtures…

 Empty, unused walls and lack of counter space…

Whitewashed 90’s oak cabinets…

Mismatched fluorescent lighting….

White linoleum floors…

and the list goes on.

Last summer we made a few big updates including recessed lighting, new tile floors, granite counters, stainless steel undermount sink, glass subway tile backsplash, and a built in bar area which nearly doubled our counter space!

Tile: Giotto Grey, from Lowe’s
Granite: Kashmir White, from Lowe’s

Subway tile: Special order from Lowe’s, Emser’s Lucente in Morning Fog

We lived with it like this for a while… when last month I finally decided to bite the bullet and paint our cabinets. In addition, we had open shelving installed on the big empty wall. Here’s what the kitchen looked like in the midst of all this…

And now, finally, every last detail is in place and our little kitchen is ready for it’s big debut:

I was debating between oil rubbed bronze or brushed nickel pulls, and I’m SO glad I went this route. I picked up the entire set of 16 on Ebay for under $80 (after my Ebay bucks)!

We also ditched the old exposed hinges and opted for concealed “soft-close” hinges, which apparently is this new technology that allows you to just gently push the door in and the spring loaded hinge will slowly pull the door closed on its own (they’ve had this for drawers for a while, but the guy at the cabinet place said this has only been around less than a year for cabinets). The hinges were under $3 a pop each, so for around $100 we were able to do the whole kitchen. SO worth it.

These open shelves… oh my goodness. They must be my favorite thing in the house.

I had so much fun accessorizing them…

DIY wooden sign tutorial coming soon (the flower bucket was a diy makeover as well).

How cute is this lil guy? It’s an owl coin bank from ZGallerie. Brad and I always seem to have loose change on the counters, so this was the perfect solution for the kitchen.

Still loving my white canister set I scored at Goodwill for $4!

I did another fun project to fill a wall… a white chalk board using DIY chalkboard paint and an old frame…

The metal bucket holds our colorful chalk

Tutorial on this also coming soon.

I had been searching for the perfect phone charging/organizing station to put on our counter, because this is how it was looking every day:

Not cute.

I had brought home a wire basket from Hobby Lobby (on sale of course) with no idea what I was going to use it for… when suddenly it clicked:

Bingo! This does a good job of not only covering the outlet, but it serves as a perfect place to stash the long charger wires and keep mail/coupons/takeout menus/etc. Problem solved.
And that is our new kitchen! I wish I was better at keeping track of costs…. but the rough estimate in my head tells me everything came in at under 5k (we had a ton of gift cards to Lowe’s to put towards our granite install, so that helped a lot).
Stay tuned for DIY wooden sign and chalkboard tutorials 🙂

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68 thoughts on “The Big Kitchen Reveal”

  5. Love it! If you ever decide to sell that house people are not going to know where they are when they walk in. I bet nothing in your neighborhood looks like that!

  9. There are a couple of updated houses in the neighborhood but nothing like this one at all. I just helped our neighbor update his bathroom (as much as I could help him with)and it turned out great.

  16. GORGEOUS!!! Looks like you got all new cabinets! I love ALL the details, but especially the back splash and the counters! GREAT job!!!

  17. It looks amazing, but from reading your blog, I knew it would. I love the counters and you have inspired me in many ways. Enjoy!!!

  20. Kudos! Your new kitchen is so great – I love your material choices, and the mixture of modern and vintage, slick and primitive. I wouldn't change a thing!
    -Revi – a new follower!

  25. Your kitchen is fabulous! I love all the white. I am redoing our kitchen right now and went with white on white as well. Really great choices!

  26. Stopping by from Apt. Therapy. We have those same whitewashed oak cabinets and I h-a-t-e them! I'd love to paint them but am too intimidated. What an inspiration, though!! Nice job 🙂

  27. I would love to know what brand those new hinges are and how you installed them. I want to do this to my kitchen SO badly!!!

  28. Not sure of the brand, our installer bought them at a local hardware store. Most of the big places won't have them, just call around to specialty places locally and ask for “soft close euro style hinges”

  35. Hi – I love your renewed kitchen! Did you install your open shelving on top of the tiles? Is it hard to drill through them?

  38. question… did you guys paint the cabinet yourself? You mentioned your installer picked up the hinges so wasn't sure. I only want to swap out the hinges on my kitchen and wasn't sure if you suggest tackling that or going with an installer

  39. LOVE those open shelves!!!!
    I'm curious as to why your cabinet guy told you that the soft close hinges for cabinets have only been around for a year or so… we had our kitchen renovated about 6 years ago, and got those hinges put in all teh cabinets then!!! The good news is, that 6 years later, they still close softly!!

  41. My dad is a custom cabinet builder, and he's been using those soft close hinges for cabinets for 20 years (I hate to burst that guy's bubble, but he told you wrong… hahaha). But still, beautiful kitchen. Great job.

  42. I love the brackets holding up the open shelving. Would you mind sharing where you got those?! Beautiful kitchen!

  46. I'm lovin' the new look! The whole kitchen feels much more serene and bright. You did a great job with making the place make use of its space and ability to be lit by the sunlight! Good job! It feels great to do such heavy work like this and see such results.

  47. I REALLY want to paint my oak cabinets but I'm affraid they won't hold up. I'm wondering how well the paint is doing on your cabinets, any chipping or peeling yet?

  48. Crystal, if you take your time and do all those steps they should hold up. Small effort for big results. They still look good as new!

  49. I love your entire house! In fact just bought one myself and am in the process of slowly ordering lots of your prints 🙂 Curious, how did you go about the cabinet painting? I have the same oak color as you did before and want to paint mine white as well.

  53. Whoa! What a transformation! The Kashmir white granite is so lovely, and it matches the rest of your kitchen beautifully. You did a good job with your sink. I’m wondering if you changed the pipes too. Anyway, I love the overall look of your kitchen. Great job!

  54. Oh wow, that’s quite the transformation! Changing the color scheme to a monochromatic white updated the whole look of the kitchen, and those drawer handles are gorgeous. Congratulations on the new kitchen! I bet it’s now a joy to cook in there!

  55. Your kitchen looks splendid! I love what you did with the marble-textured sink. The white and gray overall scheme makes the entire kitchen appear very elegant. 😉

  56. Looks beautiful. Would love to paint our cabinets but my hubby doesn't like the look. 🙁 I have to comment on the white appliances. So happy to see. We had stainless in the last house and I hated the upkeep!!!! Have white now and love them. I get so tired of realtors putting them down on TV because of resale. What about the people in the house right now?! Not everybody likes stainless! Great job. New to your blog, came over from YHL. You have great taste…

  57. Thank you so much for posting about your kitchen remodel! For all the changes you made, you got a lot of bang for your buck. I too have white appliances (in a 90s kitchen) and have been looking for ways to update it. I love how yours turned out! Thanks for sharing all the details about what products and colors you used – very helpful!

    Fan in California

  62. This is beautiful! I love the oversized hardware and your utensil hanger! I am looking for gray backsplash tile ideas, and saving this link to show my husband. Thanks for sharing!

  64. Hey, Jenna! We just updated our kitchen with very similar materials! We have white/gray silestone countertops and gray porcelain subway tile backsplash and white cabinets… I was wondering what paint color you have on the walls? Thank you!

  67. I found your kitchen pic on Pinterest and fell in love with the tiles! In fact, I loved them so much, I’m having them installed in my kitchen renovation! I’m curious what color grout you used. I seriously had no idea there were so many grout options until I went through a renovation, haha. Is it a lighter shade of grey? If you don’t remember, no worries 🙂

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