Rustic Kitchen… PART IV~ The Renovation

The Renovation

   

wall completely removed


 
 

Thumbs Up!

 


Saw dad kick the old wall,
had to try it himself!





 Demo on the wall that was to be moved 
started as soon as I had most of the supplies for the remodel. 

The astronomical $14,000 quote for new cabinets was a BIG problem.   I found a rustic hutch online with a unique top shape that matched the ironwork we were incorporating in the new kitchen.  (I am a craigslist shopper…I get so much more creative using items others do need anymore!)   The hutch top became the centerpiece of my affordable cabinet alternative. 

The base cabinets were prepped, stained black, the edges sanded to a worn look and then sealed.  We finished off the underneath of the peninsula in black hickory wood floor leftovers.  It took awhile but we finally found another furniture piece for the rest of the upper cabinets.  It had been a free-standing curio cabinet that we cut off the bottom part, keeping the glass doors.


Note: a rule of good interior design is rhythm in the overall design.  In this case we used the repetition of this shape in our focal points.

    

More details were decided on.   Countertops were actually coming down in price at the time due to the recession, but the radius cut, round peninsula end was going to cost a fortune anyway.  So we had the granite finished square so we could add our own wood top later.  We ended up using our dining table for this!  A cut was made into the table to allow it to wrap around the counter end.  The fourth leg was cut and added to the other three legs to bring the height up to the counter height.   

 

I was hooked on getting a wall-mount faucet to throw a bit of vintage style in there.  We designed a decorative addition to the counter and back of the sink that utilized the useless narrow counter that was there already.  The backsplash tile was leftover boxes of tile I had in storage.  The tile is a nice handmade cream ceramic but not too fancy.  To add detail we had it laid on a diagonal and upholstery tacks installed in every corner meeting.   

 



The floor was going to be a problem. The current floor, 20” porcelain tile, was discontinued.  We searched high and low and even posted “looking for” ads to find enough to add one more row of tile into the great room.  Luckily, when we replaced the original carpet with laminate wood floors in the house I had carefully popped up the tile in the entryway.  The house came with no extra large tile left for replacements so I felt it was important to salvage it. But there still wasn’t enough.  So I sat down and popped up all the pieces in the center of the kitchen, leaving the edge pieces.  This left a centered rectangle in the middle of the kitchen.  It became the “rug” on the floor.  We chose to fill it with a cream tumbled marble 3X6 tiles in a herringbone pattern.



hallway before

hallway during construstion

Drywall is cheap.  You can make a place look pretty darn high end with some good drywall work!    I had the iron headboard and footboard in storage that we used as architectural accents built into the walls.  Our handyman was able formed the wall openings around the iron. 

I had also envisioned a chimney hood in place of the microwave over the stove.  The chimney is a basic wood frame with drywall.  The hood is a basic hood front for grade cabinets you can get anywhere.  Rusty was able to fashion side for it and I stained it the black of the base cabinets.

We moved the microwave beside the fridge on its own shelf.  Under it is the coffee area.  The only thing mechanical that needed to be moved in this renovation was electrical and the small water line for the ice maker on the fridge.  This saved a bundle of cash.   We did also put in the ceiling, while it was open, supports to hang the pot rack in the center of the kitchen over the island. 



Before





After




 



Items that we did splurge on was the copper sink (got it on sale), bronze wall mount faucet (found a less expensive version on the one I wanted), barstools (inexpensive box set of three that happened to be perfect design) and the center island which is solid mesquite wood and handmade.  There are a couple little things left to complete. I’m still looking for cabinets over the refrigerator and microwave. I also need to finish the paint design on the chimney which I’m designing to be similar to the doorway technique.