Thursday, July 10, 2014

Craftsman Bungalow: Kitchen and Breakfast Room the Before and After

The kitchen got quite the face lift on this project.  Here's where we started.  Nice cabinets, linoleum floor, formica countertops with maple edging.  The refrigerator 'floated' in the corner.  Lighting is a big fluorescent fixture at the ceiling and another one over the sink.

What did we do?  Well, we didn't replace the cabinets, but we did move them around with some rebuilding and relocating.  We added granite countertops, a custom backsplash, and all new appliances.  We were lucky enough to find the original antique maple floors buried under layers of flooring.  But even with all that, in my mind, there are two things that make a huge difference in a blah vs. beautiful kitchen - lighting and hardware.  They say that hardware is the jewelry in a kitchen and I tend to agree.  It can totally change the way a kitchen looks.  And lighting, well lighting makes a kitchen sparkle when it's done right (not to mention work a whole lot better for the cook)!

We also did a big update in the breakfast room.  This was a former porch, that the previous owners had enclosed.  It was a nice room, with a vaulted ceiling and lots of windows.  But the big closet took up lots of space and the dark ceiling made it seem much lower than it really was.
So.....we removed the big closet (we added lots of additional storage in the rest of the house) and replaced it with this built in Craftsman style mud bench and hooks.  We painted the ceiling white and finished off all the wood trim and added matching light fixtures.  And of course we added this hand crafted $2,800 light fixture, that I found at the local ReStore (see story here).  

Before
The stainless steel topped table came from Crate & Barrel and I added these cool stools from Target.  We decided to leave the windows bare - to let all that sunlight come shining through!
Breakfast Room - After!






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4 comments:

  1. It looks wonderful!!! I love all the before and afters. I hope we'll get to see all the rooms. :)

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    1. Thanks Rebecca! It will take me a little while to go back and pull all the photos together, but I hope to get them posted soon. Sometimes I'm surprised to see how much it's changed.....and I live through the whole process!

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  2. No wonder you had so many offers so quickly. It really did come out perfectly. It won't be long before folks start stalking you to make an offer before you even begin to start work on the next one.

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  3. The breakfast room light fixture is FANTASTIC!

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