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Our Affordable Kitchen Makeover in Action

by on May 20, 2013

Last week, we told you about a kitchen makeover that we were planning for Bruno’s dad’s fixer-upper down the street. As I write this post, the magic is happening and we’ll be back next week with the pictures of the demolition and makeover process. In the meantime, we wanted to share some of the thought and planning we put into this space.

But first, here’s a little refresher to remind you what we’re dealing with:

A white kitchen with a black-and-white stove.

Here’s what Bruno and Chris are up to this week:

A brown wall with brown and white cabinets.

(Check out more progress photos on our Instagram profile)

Despite being small, dingy, and poorly laid out, there are some great bones inside this troubled space. The clock is our favorite thing about the room because it’s a charming original (and it works!). We also like the retro look of the range hood, and are exploring some ways of tuning (and pretty-ing) it up so that we can use it in the space.

Try these affordable kitchen makeover DIY hacks.

Given the size of the room and the condition of the cabinetry, we knew we wanted to freshen up the walls and the cabinets up with a coat of white paint. As we started to dissasemble everything, we discovered that several drawers were in worse shape than we thought, and they’ll require some serious patching and hardware to return to working order. 

A kitchen has old wooden cabinets and an old fashioned countertop.

The old, gold-flecked laminate countertops were the number one thing we wanted to replace in the kitchen because they are dingy, warped, and well … super ugly. Fortunately, we were able to partner with Wilsonart® HD® High Definition® Laminates to replace them. We sifted through several samples and decided on a deep gray color with a texture that resembles soapstone. The color is called Salentina Nero and it’s perfect because it’s so versatile. It has a glazed concrete look, which will look beautiful with the clean, white cabinetry, and complement the vintage vibe we’re going for.

We used Wilsonart’s Room Visualizer tool to get a feel for the way the countertops would work with the refreshed cabinetry. Here’s the image we generated:

A kitchen has an angled wall with a narrow, tall vertical shelf at a narrow wall.Wilsonart Room Visualizer

Wilsonart Room Visualizer

As you can see, our counterop choice has an organic feel that we hope will help ground the space. We also love the fact that once it’s installed, there are no visible seams on the counters. For this counter, we decided to go with a beveled edge, to give the room a polished look.

We knew we wanted an affordable countertop option for the space that could be installed on short notice. We had a countertop installer over to measure the space, selected our color and edge style, and a week later, our new countertops were going in. Amazing.

In additon to the new countertops, we opted to use a Wilsonart® HD® Integrated Sink in the kitchen. The integrated sink is pretty special; it mounts directly into the laminate countertop and leaves no ridge or edge for food and gunk to collect. This type of sink gives the counterop a clean and sleek look, and allows the fixtures to stand out.  

The current kitchen is full of bulky upper cabinets are unreachable and weigh the room down. We’re in the process of removing them and installing open shelving to help the space breathe. The open shelving will be a great way for us to bring some pops of color into the space through accessories and decor. 

Here’s our working mood board:

You can see all my inspiration images on my Pinterest board (where I’m keeping track of all my ideas for this project). Head over there and check it out. 

Please make sure to give me your own suggestions or ideas in the comments below!

Note: This post was sponsored by Wilsonart, LLC. All opinions are mine alone. 

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