New Kitchen Design

Welcome back to the kitchen project! Today we’re going to chat how we came up with the new kitchen design, and what we chose to move and where 🙂

To take it back to last weeks post, we decided to take the kitchen down to studs essentially after debating all of the pro’s and con’s of a DIY makeover vs. a complete gut job, and decided to start from scratch (the old cabinets and such will be put to use in the basement instead now!). After a few days of demo, we were starting to see some progress and decided to tackle the final design.

We ended up working through Lowes on this project due to an awesome deal they were running at the time, and chose Kraftmaid cabinets after spending hours and hours flipping through doors and options over multiple trips. M likes to research the heck out of things, and I like to see and touch all the things and have a terrible time making decisions, plus our version of a date night always involves a hardware store, so the hours and hours part is always a given in any project ha. Once all that was settled, we sat down with their CAD designer and played around for a bit!

What we wanted to move:

• The range that was previously in the island. Although it’s great in some islands, we didn’t have the depth in ours to make it safe enough for curious small hands or stray mail not to casually catch fire. Things that would happen to me in the kitchen 🙂 I also wanted to convert it from electric to gas, so since we had to run a new gas line anyways, moving this was no added cost to the budget.
• The fridge from right off the laundry room, to the more hard working utility wall. If we left it where the old fridge was, the French doors would hit the wall every. single. time. and eventually we’d end up damaging the door. Since we bought all new appliances for the kitchen before we even got the keys, we wanted to protect them so moving this was a must.
• The desk area that was previously there was not a good use of space for us. Instead, we decided to add two floor to ceiling pantries that would be much more functional for our family. The original pantry cabinet wasn’t as large as we’re used to, and we love our Costco membership a tad too much at times so more storage was necessary!

What we wanted to stay as is:

• The general layout of the cabinets and the island we were happy with after using the old cabinets for a few months (would 100% recommend living in the space for a bit before making any big changes like this!) so we kept that as is. No other design we came up with maximized the space quite as well as it already was.
• LOVE the sink in front of the big window, so that needed to stay put!
• Uppers – We removed the smaller cabinets and soffits so we could put in taller versions that stretched to the ceiling but I’m a closed storage kind of person, so although we talked about glass inserts or open shelving, the basic cabinet works best for this house right now.

After a few variations, here’s what we landed on:

We swapped out a few of the lowers for large drawers to break up the cabinets as well, and down the line I’d love to add some feet to the sink and range area to define the spaces even more.

The new range was centered on the far wall with a big vent hood on top of it. All the heart eyes about that symmetry and hood addition over here! That is an exterior wall so we could easily vent out, and I just love how it creates a focal point in what could be a boring wall of cabinets.

The refrigerator was moved next to the wall oven, replacing a single lower and upper that was previously there. No damaged fridge doors from being too close to a wall, and it’s still very easy to get to flow wise! We still maintain a triangle between the appliances, and the added pantries free up the old smaller pantry for storing all of our small appliances. Easy access without having everything on the counter for the win!

Cabinet design wise, we liked the clean look of a shaker door, but wanted something a little different and slightly more traditional. There are TONS of fun doors to choose from, but we ended up choosing the Cayden style below! I liked how the inner panel is flat and the drawer has the same detail as the doors instead of the more modern flat look.

We also went back and forth on colors (since surprise surprise, there’s tons of those to choose from too!) from a wood kitchen to white to different color paints. We had the tuxedo look in our last kitchen with gray lowers and white uppers, so to switch it up a bit we ended up picking a soft clean white for all of the perimeter cabinets, and added some interest with a stained wood island. White may be trendy right now, but I love how crisp and clean a white kitchen looks, plus it brightens up the space which is great since there’s only one window on that side of the room.

After all the decisions were made and the design was finalized, we ordered everything and waited about 2 months for them to come in. Next up was shopping for all of the finishes and counters, and of course getting everything installed! Can’t wait to share how it all comes together!