Kitchen Before + After: Vignettes Provide the "Wow" Factor

When I decided to open up walls in our kitchen renovation, I had to consider the kitchen design carefully from every angle. What would be the first impression when you entered our home? How much kitchen could you see from the entryway? Sitting on the sofa and gazing over at the kitchen, would I be looking at a sinkful of dishes? A hulking stainless steel appliance? I wanted to avoid building the kitchen that ate the living room. 

Looking at the sink elevation: Did I need wall cabinets? No, they would block the line of sight to the window. I could gain storage capacity by using all drawer bases. 

It pays to consider every elevation as a vignette if you want your "after" photos to sing. These are the considerations that gave shape to my kitchen design.

Updating Kitchen Sink Fixtures

Has this ever happened to you? You start out with a simple project — to update a faucet fixture — and invariably end up replacing the trap and a whole slew of other pipes beneath the sink. What should be a 45-minute project snowballs into a whole day thing, with multiple trips to the hardware store for parts. Here's where conventional "advice" you get from sales assistants in the plumbing aisle is just *plumb* wrong and what I'll do differently next time I touch a kitchen sink.

 

The Least Expensive "True" Counter-Depth Refrigerator Solutions

A counter-depth refrigerator, via Bosch

You'll often hear it said that appliances come in standard sizes, but there's a great deal of variation in refrigerators. So-called "standard" 36-inch refrigerators vary in height and width, and more importantly, depth. This is immediately apparent to anyone shopping for a "counter-depth" fridge. What the industry calls a "counter-depth" fridge costs several thousand dollars more than a conventional refrigerator—and still protrudes past your countertops. If you're looking for a more streamlined look, here are the options.

Why Were Galley Kitchens So Popular?

Historic galley kitchen, via The Victoria & Albert Museum

It's been almost a decade since we moved into our mid-century home in a historic neighborhood of New York City. Before we moved in, I had the floors refinished, walls skim-coated and painted, light fixtures updated, and the bathroom gut-renovated. But I didn't renovate the kitchen. I was grappling with a decision whether to leave the galley-kitchen footprint intact or to bring down some of the walls for an open concept kitchen and I wanted to live with it for a while.

Drab Kitchen Colors: A British Invasion

Bespoke craftsman kitchens of DeVol and Plain English, and the latter's off-the-shelf brand British Standard, have been gradually weaning us off our white open kitchens in favor of neatly milled and kitted-out snugs. Leading the sensory seduction has been color: golden ochres, muddy pinks, green-y grays, and moody blues. They are hues that would have looked right at home in Great-Great Grammy's Victorian farmhouse, though this time around they feel fresh and modern. Let's call them "the drabs."

Free Kitchen Design Apps to Make Your Designs, Floor Plans, and Mood Boards

An early SketchUp of my kitchen plan

As your kitchen plan comes together and you start speaking with vendors and interviewing contractors, it's helpful to have something to show that's more than a collection of inspirational photos saved to Houzz or Pinterest. Contractors can get overwhelmed by too many photos, so I boil it down to just one inspo photo, my room design (with measurements), and a moodboard—I keep mine on my phone at all times, just a click away in dropbox. It's not difficult to create them, and many of the apps you will need are free. 

Spray-Painted Kitchen-Sink Faucet One Year Later

Our kitchen renovation is a year old, and I'm still smitten! It is a pleasure to cook in. But more than this, I love that point on the backsplash where the arc of the veins in the bookended marble slabs seek each other out, like the reaching fingertips of Michelangelo's "Hands of God." You may recall that I took a risk in this renovation and spray-painted my drinking faucet to match the Delta Trinsic sink faucet in Champagne Bronze. (I did what?!) Wonder how that's holding up? No holds barred photos after the jump.

Painting the Cottage Kitchen Cabinets a "Beachier" Color

Despite its modest size and lack of insulation, our 1925 beach cottage has its charms, and we spend nearly every weekend of summer there. Cabins of the era, even when not a primary residence, can be a source of endless projects. Every year it seems something needs repair or sprucing up. We renovated the kitchen 11 years ago using IKEA cabinets that we painted ourselves, and it's held up fairly well. I only just refinished the wood countertops last summer. This year I'm planning a cabinet-color refresh to something a bit more "beach-y." After considering dozens of possibilities, I've arrived at the perfect paint color. Let's take a look.

Renovation Diary: Our Kitchen Was Featured on Sweeten!

Via Pixy Liao / Sweeten    

One nail-biting phase of this renovation happened in the planning phases, when I learned my go-to contractor who did my Brooklyn kitchen had moved out of the country and I was looking at starting from scratch, interviewing contractors and comparing bids (hoping to find a kindred soul). On my daily troll of home renovation blogs, I was following a site called Sweeten—a contractor matchmaking service—and I figured why not give it a try. I'm glad I did, because they matched me with the perfect contractor for this job. Fast forward about a year, and that very blog is now featuring my finished kitchen reveal!

Renovation Diary: Yoga Mat Cabinet & Drawer Liners Hack

My first DIY project post kitchen renovation: Install cabinet liner in the cabinet boxes, drawers, shelves, and pantries. Liner padding is available from most cabinet manufacturers and comes in rolls of (usually) clear plastic that you cut to fit. I used it to line our flatware and utensil drawers and pantry shelves. But for pantry floors and, especially, deep drawers where we store heavy pots and pans, I prefer a thicker padding—yoga mats to the rescue. 

Renovation Diary: Kitchen Reveal—With Before and After Photos

If you've been following our renovation, we've been stalled in the home stretch for some time, waiting on the lighting over the sink run and peninsula and the remaining doors that had to be reordered to measure after some field fitting around the wall oven, above the fridge, and to the right of the pantries. 

Well, it's all in now. Let's have a look!

Renovation Diary: Mixing Metal Finishes in My Kitchen

The pure white field and deep navy vein of the paonazzo marble we saw yesterday is sparking all kinds of design and decor choices in my mind. I drafted a new mood board. So much has changed since I drafted my original mood board that I thought it would be painful to compare them, but it isn't, because I love the new design even more.

Renovation Diary: Marble Shopping

—Paonazzo marble, Elizabeth Roberts Architecture—

Our home is a construction zone on the other side of the zip wall and there's a distinctly alkaline note of lime dust in my coffee this morning, so it was a real relief to spend the day marble shopping with Ross at Bas Stone in Long Island City. This stone yard — operated by two sisters — is like no other stone yard I've ever visited. We saw so many beautiful marble slabs, and one that I think may be The One.

Renovation Diary: The Case for Choosing Appliances First

This morning I'm trading Craigslist emails with people who want to buy my Thermador oven stack — that's right, the same oven stack I was so excited to find at a good price myself just a few months back on CL. The one I went to great lengths to arrange delivery for. The wall oven that completed my "dream kitchen." Though it would not have helped my particular situation, based on this experience I advise anyone planning a kitchen to choose your appliances first.

Renovation Diary: How to Create a Lighting Plan

I met with Alex this morning to go over my lighting plan. If you've never done one, it's a map showing where you want your lights to go and indicating, with dotted lines, where those lights should have switches located. You also indicate where outlets should go. When I was a renovation newbee on my first kitchen, I neglected to do this and I ended up with a gorgeous kitchen that was not well-lit. I also ended up with cutouts for outlets interrupting the flow of my expensive slate backsplash. This time I was prepared.
 

Renovation Diary: Rethinking All the Appliances

I've been poring over appliances online and comparing electrical specs. I'm getting a lesson in amps, volts, watts, and jouels and honestly, it's all just little bit too math-y for this lit major. (Calling all digital entrepreneurs: Someone should launch a website that makes spec comparison easier. Can you imagine the commissions coming in from the merchant you finally send users to? Ka-ching.) But in the end my decision came down to eliminating to the heaviest energy-user, my beloved Thermador wall oven stack. Sniff sniff.

Renovation Diary: Dealing With Last-Minute Design Changes

I'm still reeling from all the renovation surprises this week. It took a day or two for it to settle in that, yes, I'm back to having a galley kitchen. But I'm surprising myself in that I'm feeling really okay with it. I count myself blessed that we can spread out the cooktop wall, get more pantry space, and place the fridge where everyone can easily get to it while we're cooking. That we can still open up the walls somewhat with a peninsula on the end is icing on the cake. And it's going to be beautiful... if I can just wrap my brain around what to do with this unexpected sink run wall. Please share your opinion  in the comments!

Renovation Diary: Kitchen Design, Take Two

When you live in a NYC co-op (similar to a condo for all of you non-New Yorkers), you go into any renovation prepared to make compromises. On sites like Brickunderground there are dozens of articles warning about what most co-op boards will just flat out say no to. You'll be shocked when I tell you what most New Yorker's can't have.
 

Renovation Diary: Demo Day!

Before work this morning I met with our contractor Aleks to hand over a set of keys, and we went over the kitchen plans and the schedule of things that will take place this week. This project has for so long existed only in my head, it's exciting to know that while I'm at work all day doing my job, his crew will be here making things happen.

Renovation Diary: Preparation

It looks like moving day at our place, and in many ways it feels like it too. Today I spent most of the day hunting down boxes and packing up remaining dishes, cooking utensils, pots and pans, small appliances, and foods that we won't see again for 4-6 weeks. I emptied out every cabinet and pantry into boxes and bags and stowed it all in the spare bedroom, where last night Ross had helped me push all the dining and living room furniture.