Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know that the kitchen is the heart of the home or whatever they say. My favorite part however, is the Cinderella moment! You know the one, where she's looking real busted, I mean, just a hot mess and the fairy Godmother takes one look at her and just handles that mess with a wave of her magic wand! Well, I'm no fairy godmother with a magic wand and I can't just wave said wand and turn a dated kitchen into a princess... I need a few weeks, tons of design hours and a crew to build the dream... but man can we turn a space in DESPERATE need of some magic, into something that will give Cinderella and that Godmother of hers, a run for their money!
This project was very special to me... mainly because its one of my BFF's kitchen, that she had been waiting to remodel for YEARS! Literally, YEARS! So, I was very excited to tackle this project and turn her dated kitchen into the kitchen of her dreams! But also because, her and her husband have very different tastes, and arriving at a cohesive design that met both their design aesthetics was a challenge, that I think we excelled at! Keep reading to see the amazing transformation this kitchen went through!
Before: Sink, Stove + Fridge view.
Look at that MASSIVE light fixture they had! When we tore it down we realized that we were going to need to reframe the entire ceiling where the light was! The entire ceiling, y'all! We also tore down all the soffits, because I DESPISE soffits... Like, full fledged hatred! Whoever invented them must have hated for a space to feel open and spacious. Which makes them a monster in my eyes! Just kidding, but not really.
Space planning was crucial for this kitchen, because the space was limited and the 'work triangle' was none existent! For those of you that don't know what the work triangle is, it's an imaginary triangle that you draw from the 3 major use items in a kitchen; the sink, the stove and the fridge. The sum of the three traveled ditstances should be no more than 26', with no single leg of the triangle measuring less than 4' or more than 9'. The picture below should help make sense of this rule. They don't need to be equally spaced, they just can't be more/less than the allowed distances. Trust me, sometimes it's harder than it looks to space plan the 'work triangle', but imperative to a functional kitchen. Like I always say, hire someone that is exceptional at space planning if you have a tricky space, cause they are worth every freakin' penny!
The existing layout was way off. Two of the three high use items were literally right next to each other, making that side of the kitchen extremely crowded when in use by two people. When I was working on the space plan, the first thing I did was move the fridge to the opposite wall, which sat bare. Why was it bare? you ask, your guess is as good as mine. The 80's were crazy ya'll, in every way! Next, we needed to open this space up, which meant tearing the wall between the kitchen and dining room down... Here's the floor plan we landed on, as you can see, we moved the fridge, moved the dishwasher, centered the sink and tore down the wall.
Before: Wall between the kitchen + dining room view.
We essentially moved all the cabinets on this wall to the wall opposite the stove. Which again, just sat bare. That opened this kitchen up soooo much! Worth every penny and the loss of a couple of cabinets.
New stove, sink + microwave layout.
That 'work triangle' is now working double time! The fridge being on the opposite side just makes sense.
Here is the view with the wall tore down... I mean, what a difference! Am I right?
We decided to keep the center light and just replaced the fixture. It was functioning and it gave us the opportunity to break up the recessed lights with a nice fixture. Pro tip: You don't have to get rid of everything when remodeling, if something works with the design, its ok to keep it!
The last thing we have left to do is change out the window and add a nice roller shade, but custom windows are 16 weeks out! So, we will have to wait for that... But ill update this blog with new pictures when that's done, so you can see the SEXY roller shade we picked out! I swear comments like that is 100% why I'm single! Who else finds roller shades sexy? Anyone?! No?!
Just me I guess.
Hope you enjoyed the gory details of what it takes to turn a dated kitchen into a vision!
Much love,
Jac.