MicasaStyle Blog

Light & Airy Kitchen Renovation

Contributed by Sherry Petersik of This Young House.

When we first laid eyes on our 50's ranch in Richmond, Virginia, the house charmed us from the moment we stepped inside. That is until we saw the kitchen, which nearly knocked us off of our house-hunting feet thanks to a trifecta of bad design. Dingy, dated, and dark, it was the last room that we'd ever want to come home to. But beyond the creaking cabinets and copious cobwebs we spied a glimmer of potential. Anyone who knows us knows that we love a challenge, so it's no surprise that we made an offer that very evening.

And then we got to work. The decrepit knotty pine cabinets (which were original to the house) didn't even have drawer slides and the archaic pea green microwave was only funny for a minute (then it was just plain scary). In fact, when our new stainless appliances were delivered, the guys who carted away our old ones joked that we should sell them to a 50's set decorator since they were so insanely old (some of them even had cinder block bases to weigh them down).


But new stainless steel appliances were just the beginning. Over the course of 113 days, we survived only on takeout while we gutted and rebuilt our dream kitchen from the ground up. Literally. From the new oak flooring (scored on the cheap from Limber Liquidators) to the crisp white KraftMaid cabinets (and double the counter space thanks to some smart reconfiguring), things were definitely looking up. And the veiny marble-esque granite along with a sleek stainless range hood added some much needed signature style while the brushed nickel knobs and a seeded glass pendant injected a dash of sparkle. The icing on the cake was the moody gray-blue paint color that we chose for the walls (we loved it so much in our master bedroom, we just had to work it into the kitchen as well).

And after the dust cleared we finally got to cook a homemade meal after 4 months of surviving (just barely) on fast food. But as good as our delicious (and well overdue) home meal tasted- it paled in comparison to the taste of victory. Thanks to seeking out deals on eBay (where we scored our fabulous faucet and undermount sink) and doing much of the work ourselves (and getting a third and a forth estimate when we couldn't) we ended up with a kitchen that's as easy on the eyes as it was on our wallet.



For more tasty kitchen details (along with a slew of other before & afters) please visit This Young House.

Labels: after, airy, before, decorating ideas, design ideas, kitchen, light, micasastyle, misasastyle, renovation, room makeover

posted by MicasaStyle @ 10:38 AM