We finally finished our galley kitchen remodel! In the last post about it, it was being demoed. I was hoping to have project-by-project posts, but instead here’s one giant before-and-after post.

We’ll start with the “After”, then the “Before” from the dining room.

From the living room (after):

And before:

Guys…this one tiny room completely transformed our house. It went from a 6′ wide closet of a kitchen to a place where everyone wanted to (and could!) be.

We were finally able to enjoy cooking together again.

There were still some things we didn’t get to, like the backsplash we had planned, which would have really warmed the room up, and replacing the main light fixture, but we’re still pretty pleased with how far we did get!

The layout changes

The biggest change was obviously ripping out the wall. A galley kitchen just wasn’t going to work for us. We built an island where the wall used to start. Not only was it way more open, but we could also now access the kitchen from more than one spot.

We also swapped fridge and stove positions to further open things up.

The cabinets

The cabinets were a huge score. One day we randomly went into a Restore (by Habitat For Humanity) second-hand store hoping to find some art for the dining room and ended up with “new” kitchen cabinets.

They had been the showpieces at a nice cabinet store…which meant they were never actually used, but it also meant that they had all the upgrades like olive wood drawers, amazing slide out cubbies and baskets, built-in spice racks, tiny bonus cupboards on the ends for small items, and more.

They came in a really nice gray, but while I intended to paint them black (and already had the paint), we ran out of time.

So the cabinets were very affordable, and as we love, we opted for open shelving on top.

The island was super fun to do. Since space was really limited, but we needed more storage, we used some of the upper cabinets for the island as they are only 15 inches deep. The Hubs built a base fastened to the floor to attach the cabinets to. Here’s a video of how to build a sub frame if you’re using wall cabinets for bases, so you can get a visual of it.

Then we used a regular depth countertop which overhung perfectly for counter-height stools.

We put veneer over the sides and backs of the cabinets and then painted them with a custom color to match the rest of the cabinets.

The cabinets were the perfect depth for pots and pans and all those random kitchen items.

The floor

We pulled up three layers of flooring down to the original hardwood, but sadly it was way beyond repair (looks-wise!). We weighed our options, and decided to go with the very affordable, very fast peel-and-stick vinyl.

If it wasn’t that, it was going to be real tile, and we didn’t have the time or the budget for that at the moment.

We put down new subflooring on top of the hardwood for a clean surface to stick to. Then it’s just a project you can work on for a couple hours a day until it’s done! At least that’s how I do it.

A big thing I love about peel and stick is that because there isn’t nearly the time and financial investment, I’m not afraid to go bold.

We used Achim Geometric pattern tiles. I loved them.

The appliances

The big splurges were the fridge and stove, though we did wait until they were on sale. We went with black stainless steel (since the lower cabinets were supposed to be black).

We started buying counter-depth refrigerators years ago, and just can’t go back to standard depth. Less food gets lost in the back, AND it just looks so much better and saves that much more room in the kitchen.

The range hood was from Amazon. It was more affordable there, but it was a little frustrating to install with the way the sleeve was designed.

The sink and counters

The sink was special to me. Since we were going to go black on the cabinets, I also wanted a black sink to sit on the marble-look counters. We found this single bowl sink from Kohler and paired it with this gorgeous (and affordable) gold faucet.

The counters were our old favorites from Ikea. We got shock and disbelieving comments from both a pair of designer friends and from realtors that were visiting when we told them they were IKEA. Highly recommend!

The pantry

The pantry was a huge change too. I can’t currently find an image of what it was originally but…

The door to the right inside the kitchen was a little hallway with a door to the back yard at the end.

When we bought the house, that hallway had three closets in it for pantry-type storage. It was clever, but a lot of the spaces were awkward and because of the doors, things would pile up and get messy in there really fast.

So we gutted it.

We didn’t want to take out the walls as well, but they were plastered within an inch of their life and it was just not pretty.

So we took it all down and started with fresh drywall.

I always wanted a butler’s pantry, so we built one. And it was so much more functional! It was also a great place to store dry goods, which is always the one thing missing when you go with open shelves for uppers in the kitchen.

We also removed the door so it would flow better.

The pictures aren’t that great because it’s such a tiny space (and we left in such a hurry), but there were two full lower cabinets and one extra large upper hanging above them. Then we had more open shelves, and an open section underneath for a trash can and rain boots.

We didn’t keep detailed records, but including the splurge on higher-end appliances, we estimate the whole remodel at $15,000. The biggest costs were the appliances and then the building materials (the wall we ripped out was load-bearing, so we needed to put in a lot of quality materials and care there).

So worth it to go from the very cramped galley kitchen to a big open one for a couple who loves to cook and entertain.

So there it is! Our years-in-the-making galley kitchen remodel!

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We actually have a couple projects to share.  In the last couple months, we replaced the kitchen flooring and built a bench over the radiator.  Here is where we started over a year ago:

The lovely original hardwoods throughout the first floor had been covered in layer after layer of plywood and linoleum.  The orange “wood” laminate was the top layer.  When we pulled up all the layers in the dining room, the kitchen floor looked even uglier.  It was real, beautiful, cool-colored, old hardwood next to shiny orange fake stuff.

So we pulled up the kitchen floor too.  We couldn’t go all the way down to the original wood for several reasons, but we took it down to the lowest practical layer and then laid the new flooring.  Because of time and budget constraints, along with the fact that we’re not planning on staying in this home for much longer, we went with peel-and-stick tiles.  And we’re actually very happy with our decision.

The big tall radiator cover that was there was silly, since the radiator itself was only a matter of inches tall.  So I asked Hubs if we could build a bench over it and make better use of the space.  I drew my general idea, he did the hard part of designing it, and we built it.

And here it is today:

He did amazing work.  It’s really strong, it doesn’t block any of the heat, and I think it looks great.

We are also adding large baseboards, caps, and quarter-round to match what was in the house originally.

Still to do:

* Touch up the paint
* Add baseboard behind bench
* Install quarter-round and baseboard cap
* Paint baseboards
* Make cushions for the bench
* Bring the table back in
* Have a finished kitchen? Maybe?

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The base cabinets in our kitchen looked horrible.  It wasn’t the cabinets themselves, it was the finish.  As with much of the house, their paint job was pretty terrible.  It was streaky and bumpy, which made lots of grooves for oils and dirt to collect, and they were badly stained all around the handles.  Which meant it always looked dirty, no matter how much I scrubbed.

I wanted something darker anyway.  The color they were painted was very similar to the wall color and it made the room look pretty flat and dull.

So I painted them Martha Stewart’s Zinc (which you can’t get color cards for anymore) but it’s a nice rich slate gray, in a semi-gloss finish.

Once again, I texted Dad, and asked the best way to paint over a badly painted cabinets in a semi-gloss finish.  I was quite surprised when he said to wet sand them.  But the results were amazing.  It smoothed all the bumps right out and left a nice, flat finish.

Of course, I removed all the hardware and took all the doors and drawers outside.  To sand, I took a sanding sponge, dunked it in water, squeezed out the excess, and lightly sanded everything.  The sanding block had to be rinsed out several times during the process.  (Very important note if you are going to try this: make sure that you put a drop cloth down, because the wet sanding re-activates the paint, and it will drip.)

There was a film left on the doors after sanding, but since mine were completely sealed with at least 4 coats of paint, I just rinsed them off with the hose and dried them with old towels.  The cabinets themselves took a little more work since I couldn’t just hose them down.  I didn’t get the sanding block quite as wet and then once they were sanded, I wiped them down twice with damp cloths.

To repaint, I brushed in all of the corners and then rolled on the rest with a 4-inch foam paint roller (similar to this).  Love the easy changes that make such a big difference!  There were a couple more changes I made, but forgot to photograph them.  I’ll tell you about then next week!

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I’m short.  Really short.  5 feet even, actually.  With 20+ years of practice, I can get around just find in a world built for people significantly taller than me (unless there’s a glass item I need on the top shelf at the grocery store–I still haven’t figured that one out).

But there is a disadvantage to my lack-of-height when it comes to homekeeping: I can’t see the tops of shelves.  I can reach the tops, I just can’t see them.  They do all get dusted regularly, but if I miss something, I won’t have any idea.

So because I can’t see the piles of salt and pepper our salt and pepper grinders were leaving behind on the shelf, I didn’t realize we needed some sort of tray under them all this time.  I thought for a couple days about how to get/make an itty bitty tray to put under the shakers, but I was blank until we went to Crate and Barrel for some rug shopping.  They had these pretty slate trays.  But I didn’t need to buy one, because we have piles of slate slabs and fractions of slabs that we’ve been pulling out of the dirt in our yard for the last 4 years.

Why is our yard filled with pretty, ready-made slate trays?

This house originally had a slate roof, and when the previous owners put a new roof on, they just tossed all the slate tiles into the yard where the ground swallowed them up.  Every once in a while, the yard regurgitates one for us.  I’ve been saving them because I knew there had to be something cool they could be used for.  Finally, after 4 years, I realized they could be used as cheese plates, platters, trays, or to save our shelf from the salt and pepper.

PS: If you don’t have a front yard that spits out free slate tiles for you, you can get them cheaper on Amazon than at Crate and Barrel.

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We have new lights in the kitchen.  Behold, our DIY industrial pendant lamp:

We finally took down the big old ceiling fan over in the breakfast area and added this industrial-looking light.  We have a matching one over the kitchen sink to, which you’ll see soon.

This is SUCH an easy DIY.  All they are are modified work lamps from Lowes. Or like this work lamp on Amazon.

In addition to the lamp, you’ll need:

• Spray paint (I used Rustoleum’s Metallic Iron)
• Paper towel
• Painters tape or masking tape
• Optional: a canopy to cover the hole in the ceiling. Depending on what kind of lamp was already there, you may or may not need one of those.

The best part was that the lamps themselves cost $14 each. The new canopies for $3 each. And then the can of spray paint was around $8. So for $21 each, we have new industrial-looking lights in the kitchen.

Of course, as everything in our old house, the ceiling fan was off-center to everything.  And we didn’t want to do any re-wiring of the house at the moment, so we just draped the cord into place and hung it from a screw hook in the ceiling that was centered over the breakfast table.  The cord was a little stiff and didn’t want to drape nicely or hang straight down since this light fixture is so light-weight, so we tied a very loose knot at the point of the drape and hung it from that.  It goes very well with the industrial-look, but might not look as good with other styles of lighting.

Way better than the ceiling fan, huh?

Many of you might know how to turn a plug-in light fixture into a hard-wired one, but before we started doing electrical work in this house, I had no idea how simple it was.  In fact, even when the Hubs said it was an easy thing to do, I was too afraid to have him do it for me.  So, for those of you who feel like I did, read how simple and non-scary changing a plugin light fixture into a hardwired one is.

Some other DIY lighting we’ve done:

• Moroccan lanterns
• Birdcage chandelier
• Giant floral/snowball looking chandelier

Save this to your DIY board!

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Last week, we put bamboo blinds on the naked kitchen windows.  I thought it would help with the empty feeling of the breakfast area, but it kind of made it worse.  It was too stark of a contrast in the sea of white.

Curtains would help, but they aren’t possible because of the positions of the windows.  We needed some art to balance everything out.  But that’s where I was stumped.  What kind of art?  And where?  The thought of framed pictures on either side of the window wasn’t doing it for me.  We needed something natural and textural to warm it up and tie in to the kitchen better.  So I browsed Houzz for a couple days and found a gorgeous photo of wooden cutting boards as wall art.

Let me tell you, if you have a Home Goods within 2oo miles of you, you need to go there just for their amazing variety of wooden cutting/serving boards.  I’ve been ogling them for over a year, but couldn’t justify a purchase since we didn’t need them.  Well, yesterday, I got to buy not just one, but 6 of them!  The prices ranged from $7 to $15.  My total was around $60.

The two rectangle ones didn’t have have holes in them, so I just grabbed the 3/4″ drill bit and added them.  I wanted to hang them with jute or twine or some sort of rope, but all I had on hand was raffia, so they are hung with that temporarily.

And, literally, The Hubs walked past as I was typing this, and said “What about leather straps to hang the boards with?”  Genius!  I’ll be picking up some leather next time I’m at the craft store.

Art in the kitchen is a tricky thing!  Do you have any?  How did you decide what to put up?

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When you walk into our house, you enter into the living room.  If you look straight ahead, you are facing the dining room, and the kitchen beyond that. This is what it looks like:

Is it a half-wall or just a wall with a hole in it?  A pass-through?  I’ve never liked this wall. It’s just silly to me.  Don’t get me wrong, a simple pass-through like this wouldn’t be bad in a contemporary house.  But this isn’t a contemporary house, it’s a Victorian.

While painting, I decided to remove the piece of wood in the half wall that had bothered me since we moved in.  The wood doesn’t look so bad from this angle, but it was very worn (not in a good way), ill-fitted and very, very orange.  It was also too narrow to use as a buffet, but deep enough to collect piles of papers and things all the time.

It was very easy, there were no fasteners keeping it in place, just 5 layers of paint.  So it just took some scraping with a flat head screwdriver, and a mallet.  Once it was free from the paint, the whole piece of wood just lifted right up.

I am kicking myself for living with it there for 3+ years.  It’s gone now, and it looks better, but the wall is still silly.  I don’t know how to make it not silly.  I’m thinking of possibly building in a buffet on the dining room side and adding moulding to make them look more like pillars, but that’s a big job.  Any ideas?

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Ready for the kitchen before and after?  Here is the before–not terrible, but not what we wanted:

And here is what it looks like now:

We love how open and simple it is.  And it’s the perfect balance of masculine and feminine for us.  (And not at all preppy.)  The handmade iron brackets give the perfect feeling to the room, like they have always been there and this is how the room was meant to be.

The breakfast area still has a few updates to be done: window coverings, new chairs, and a light fixture to replace the ceiling fan.  But those are quick and simple fixes.

Here’s the before, and after again.

I really am excited about it every morning when I walk in there.  And a big bonus: putting dishes away is really easy, as is getting ready for dinner.

Aside from the range hood, the only things we had to buy were the brackets, shelves, paint and stain, and all that cost about $250.  (The iron brackets are from Anthropologie, and the shelves are stair treads from the DIY store.  The wall color is Martha Stewart’s “Tailors Chalk” in Behr paint.  You can see all of our materials choices and progress along the way here if you’re interested.)  And it was a pretty simple DIY.  Not bad for a completely new-feeling kitchen!

The post The big kitchen reveal appeared first on Little Victorian.

Along with many other random building materials, we have a single raw, pine stair tread in the dining room.

When I originally had the idea to ditch the upper kitchen cabinets for open shelving, of course, I first had to pitch the idea to the Hubs. So I grabbed that stair tread and put it against the wall as an example of how open shelving would look. He wasn’t immediately sold on getting rid of the cabinets, but he was sold on using stair treads as shelving: it was thicker and deeper than boards sold for the purpose of shelving, AND it was bullnosed. All for about the same price.  That is the shelf that was in the last post about the brackets.

So once he warmed up to the idea of open shelving in the kitchen, it was an easy choice: we’d go with stair treads instead of official “shelving.”  We would only need 6 four-foot treads at $10 a piece.  The IKEA upper cabinets we had priced were going to be around $1000, so $60 was a great start to a less expensive, and more open kitchen.

Now the dilemma is which stain to use.  We picked up Minwax’s new “Weathered Oak” but it just didn’t look like the color on the sample.  I wanted some gray in the color, but this just turned out pretty flat and drab.  Mostly, I wanted the warmth of the wood to balance out the room and this stain just wasn’t doing it for me.

Not sure if I should pick up a different stain all-together or try mixing it with a warmer color that I already have and just doing one coat?  So many options!

But first, we’re taking a little break for the next week before we get back to fixing the wall and hanging the remaining brackets and staining the shelves.  So I will not have projects to share until October. Have a lovely week-and-a-half and see you next month!

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We splurged on the pretty brackets for our open shelving in the kitchen.  We went back and forth and debated about which brackets to choose from the home improvement stores, and online hardware stores, but we weren’t crazy about any of them.  So I checked Anthropologie.  Of course, they were more expensive than everyone else, but the brackets were significantly better looking–and unique.

They are iron and handmade, and they look handmade, which we love.

Click here to see the finished product

We got the first couple brackets installed, but we had some…issues with the wall.  Apparently, of all places, we screwed the bracket in right at a seam.  The wall didn’t like that very much.  So before we continue with the shelf hanging, we have some wall to repair.

Eventually, when we get all the work done, the shelves are going to extend to the corner, and there will be two rows of shelving all around the kitchen.

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