Our kitchen transformation is definitely the biggest one my husband and I (and our GC) tackled! And I have to tell ya, even Eric was skeptical on this room design, and if the before version could even come close to resembling what I had in mind for the after. He didn’t, initially have the vision that I did for the space, and was worried it wouldn’t come to fruition. In the end, though, he knew that I’d had been mentally planning my ideal kitchen for years and trusted what I planned out.

SKIP ON DOWN FOR BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS + DIRECT LINKS

So, let’s talk the before. As I’ve mentioned before, our home was built in 1989-ish, but not only that, it was preserved in that very year, for the most part. No space was that clearer than in the kitchen! There was only one updated appliance and the rest were from the year it was built. The backsplash had tiles with pictures of herbs on it and everything was very oak-heavy. The layout wasn’t very conducive to the space as it seemed to close everything off and the kitchen looked small for how much room there actually was square footage-wise. There was a walk-in pantry (where our current bar and wine fridge area is) that cut really deeply into the eat-in portion of the kitchen. The refrigerator wasn’t counter-depth and was pushed to the edge of the doorway, so when you walked into the kitchen, you basically walked into the refrigerator. The soffits above the kitchen cabinets were large and cut off the room and made the ceiling look lower than it was. And, if you scroll back to sunroom transformation, you’ll see that there were doors (most of which didn’t even open) spanning across the kitchen into the sunroom. So the synopsis for the old kitchen was “closed in” and the goal for the new kitchen was “open it up!”

Our general contractor and I walked the kitchen a few times to get the measurements just right, but we figured out how we could fit a 9′ island into the existing space, if we pulled out the existing peninsula with range. This was always a dream of mine – to have a large island where our entire family could sit – and I was thrilled at the idea that it could become a reality in this kitchen. If you follow my instagram at all, you know I love to cook and spend more time in the kitchen than any room in the house. So I had long pined for a professional range/oven to use and further my cooking skills and a large refrigerator that could house the myriad of food items I purchase and go through each week. We decided to do the layout for the range with the double oven on the bottom and a 6 burner with griddle on top. (Range linked here). We also configured it in such a way that we could have the side by side refrigerator my hubs was rooting for, along with a pantry cabinet next to it. (Side by side refrigerator and freezer linked here). We used an area in the kitchen that used to have a desk to push everything over, so that we could open it up and would no longer be walking into the refrigerator.

We wanted an extended farmhouse sink to fit alllll of the dishes and all of the produce and that beautiful little baby we were soon to be welcoming, so configured that into the cabinet layout. (36″ farmhouse sink linked here)

We also wanted a bar area that could house a wine fridge because we are big wine drinkers! So we made some of the cabinetry into wine holders and put the wine glasses on either side with glass doors to showcase them and put the wine fridge in the center of the bottom cabinets.

Across from that is our eat-in kitchen area. I want to note about that area that we got a 54″ table. The options were 48″, 54″ and 60″ in the particular table we were looking at. A general rule of thumb is about about 10″ per person for eating space. Since we are going to remain a family of 4 and will generally leave only 4 chairs at the table, we still wanted to be able to flex up and the 54″ sits 6 comfortably, so we keep two additional chairs in our dining room for guests.

If I say I spent hours. upon hours. upon hours configuring our cabinet layout with the cabinet company, it might be an understatement. Listen, that sounds crazy, I’m sure. But when you’ve been mentally planning your ideal kitchen for about a decade and finally have the spot for it but need to figure out how to lay it out and which way a door should be hung or if something should be a drawer or a cabinet or a drawer in a cabinet, it doesn’t seem quite as crazy. 😉 I won’t bore you with all of those details, other than to say that I finally have a pullout cabinet for spices next to the stove and have everything else organized in the way I’ve always hoped to.

I really am just thrilled with how it came out. I don’t mean to sound boastful, by any means, I just want to celebrate this kitchen becoming a reality and also want to note that we worked hard and saved for years and this kitchen (and home) didn’t happen easily or overnight.

If you have any comments or questions, feel free to leave them below or email me directly at littlethingsbytess@gmail.com !

Cabinet Colors:

island: painted moonstone

surround: painted white

Countertops:

Quartz in Fairy White

Backsplash:

Africa Tempesta (Tile Shop) with whisper grey grout

Here is a carousel of images of the items from our kitchen. I will post all pics below as well as the links to everything!

Links to kitchen items:

kitchen table (54″ // color: benedict brown)

dining chair with rattan back (color: cinder)

dining chair with rattan seat* (color: dark brown)

*we use these for the kids because the other chairs have linen seats – so we have 4 of the rattan back and 2 of the rattan seat. The table seats 6, but we only keep 4 chairs at it usually.