Valentine Cottage Kitchen Reveal — Simple Creative Home

Clean Cottage Kitchen

This kitchen is from my old English Cottage, a 1930's home that I renovated and then put on the market in fall of 2007. Our objective was to create a charming, cottage style kitchen with modern amenities, durable, easy-care surfaces and a warm but bright color palette. Because the home was put on the market soon after these renovations were completed, there is a minimum of accessories, which I would change if I had stayed in the house. The original kitchen seemed bright, but it had a frustrating layout, a lack of storage space and an appalling lack of counter space. In addition, the eating area was too small for a standard table and required that everyone shoehorn in. Gootz was always annoyed because he sat at the end of the table and had to fetch anything anyone wanted because no one else could get up and leave the table. The reason for this was that the eating nook was actually a converted back porch that had been enclosed in the 1970's. One of the first things we did was to add trim around the opening between the main kitchen and the eating nook. Next we converted the peninsula to an island, using the same cabinets to keep costs down. We also:

Installed wainscoting throughout the kitchen
Had the counters and backsplash tiled (counters in 12" granite tile and backsplash in 2" ceramic mosaic)
Replaced the pendants in the dining area and switched the flourescent monsters over the main kitchen to vintage-looking track lighting
Painted the walls, trim, ceilings and cabinets
Added cabinet and drawer pulls
Tiled the floor with laminate tile
Installed all new stainless-steel appliances and a new farm-style sink with faucet

Kitchen

Here's what it looked like when we bought the house (previous owner's decor): And here's what it looked like afterwards: (Note: These were all taken a day or two before the final, final details were done, so in these pictures the cabinets don't all have pulls.) Looking the opposite direction, before: And after: Here's another shot of the island: And the tile backsplash: While we were living there, one of my favorite spots in the whole house was the dining nook, even when it was under construction, just because of the windows: And the view to the backyard: We managed to pull of this renovation for a very small sum. We had originally planned to spend under $5,000, but in the time crunch had to hire out a couple of the bigger jobs, which put us over budget. The breakdown looked like this: Materials Stainless steel appliances (fridge, stove, dishwasher): $2600 Tile & materials (caulk, grout, etc) for counters and backsplash: $980 Sink & faucet: $300 Two additional cabinets to fill in after layout change: $250 Construction materials (lumber, wire, etc.): $100 Stock moldings & beadboard: $205 Cabinet hardware (pulls): $200 Lighting: $240 Paint: $100 Materials Total: $4975Labor Tile installation: $1500 Painting Cabinets: $500 Labor Total: $2000Grand Total: $6945 Not bad, eh? ResourcesPaint: Glidden "Water Chestnut" in eggshell (on walls) and Glidden "Crisp Linen" in semi-gloss (on cabinets), Home Depot. Hardware: Knob Hill 50mm small birdcage oval knob (on cabinets) and 3" birdcage wire pull (on drawers). $3.99 and $4.99, Home Depot. Counters: "Green Tea" 12" granite tile. $6.25 per square foot plus installation, Lowes.