Our Kitchen Refresh

FINALLY! This post has been yeeeaaaars in the making! I mean, 4 years, but still YEARS! When we first met our house, it was love at first site. I loved how almost all of the house was still original to the 1977 build, especially, our kitchen! I knew I didn’t want to buy a house with someone else’s renovation, especially one that didn’t respect the original design of the house. So, when we were finally able to make changes beyond paint and hardware, original integrity plus updated classics was my goal!

Here’s how she looked not very long after moving in. I’d already started tackling all the doors and trim throughout the house, hence the black trim you see below.

A little over a year after moving in is when I decided to tackle ridding the kitchen of some of the brown that had taken over. Brown floors, brown cabinets, brown countertops. Brown. I blogged about the process here and here and after about a week, this space had a brand new lease on life!

I’m telling you that a little bit of paint can help you create a million pounds of magic! I absolutely loved how it turned out. Again, you can check out the full paint and hardware transformation here and if you’re looking for a painting break down, just click here. It was the perfect “interim” solution until we could afford to make more substantial changes, like countertops, backsplash and lighting. It took almost another three years to get there, but my gosh, it was so worth it!

I wanted our kitchen to reflect our design style and way of living while also staying connected to and respecting the original foundation of our house. It functioned perfectly; it just needed a little updating. No need for a major gut or knocking out any walls. When we considered replacing the cabinets with all new, but thought about the cost, time, overall value of our home and functionality of the existing cabinets and, ultimately, we decided to just keep them as they were. They’re almost 50 years old, but in good condition and I just couldn’t justify throwing them away. This made our scope of work incredibly simple.

Replace the countertops, sink, faucet, dishwasher, lighting and hardware and add a bomb ass backsplash.

Boom.

Translation: warm, rich, well lit moodiness.

How’d I do?

So breaking things down a bit: the damaged and dated laminate countertops were the first things to go. They had a burn mark and several dents and dings from years of wear.

I want to note that I loathed the laminate material of our old counters, but loved how the wood look warmed up all the black and white. So, when it was time to pick new ones, I knew I wanted wood to maintain that warmth. We decided to go with solid walnut butcher block countertops from Lumber Liquidators.

They looked incredible straight out of the box, but as soon as I applied mineral oil to them, it took them to a whole ‘nother level of beauty!

We replaced the old shallow stainless steel double sink with a beautiful black granite single sink with an offset drain and replaced the dated faucet with a single black pull down faucet (both from Elkay USA). They’re both like brand new earrings complimenting the perfect outfit!

The signature piece to the outfit: quite simply, the bomb ass backsplash!

Our backsplash is the Chaine Homme pattern from Fireclay Tile in their Halite colorway. It’s classic and simple in shape and form, but incredibly unique and unexpected…exactly what I’d hoped for! If you check out the Fireclay site, you’ll see that the tile is inspired by the links in vintage watches.

I, of course, saw the letter H and had to have this tile represent my family’s last name and now this kitchen totally screams me, I mean, us! Seriously, hubs and Davin love all the changes as much as I do!

This kitchen update is what exactly what our home needed and could not have turned out more perfect! But it did…because the most perfect thing happened right after the kitchen update and is totally the icing on the cake!

And I’ll be back with part 2 to tell you all about it! LOL!

For now, here are the sources to all of the new elements of the kitchen:

Walnut Butcherblock Countertops

Black Granite Single Basin Sink

Black Pull-down Spray Faucet

Brass 1.5” Round Knobs

Brass Drawer Pulls

Chaine Homme Backsplash Tile (ours is in the Halite colorway)

Black Cylinder Light Fixture

Black Stainless Dishwasher

Cast Iron Dutch Oven