Integrating 2024 intentions with our diy kitchen

By far the most exciting part of 2024 for our home has been our kitchen refresh. I wrote about this briefly in my newsletter last week (subscribe for mini home updates!) but am sharing the full process here. As some of you may remember from earlier posts, we bought our home in the spring of 2021 (somehow it has been nearly three years?!) and the kitchen was a major eyesore, despite being updated a year before the previous owners sold to us. We left it untouched for two and a half years while we focused on more cosmetic, affordable updates - painting, replacing bathroom vanities and mirrors, wallpapering, new lighting throughout, ceiling fan replacements, new carpet. The list has gotten pretty lengthy and when I look at the total we have spent on parts of the home that technically increase value, it's close to $50,000. Realistically, we could have seriously transformed the kitchen with that sum but I'm glad we took this route and spent only $6,000 on this kitchen update. Alright, so let's rewind to the kitchen that we lived with until just a few weeks ago.

BEFORE

The kitchen was, for lack of a better descriptive word, black, with harsh, shiny, shaker cabinets, satin nickel hardware, and an awkwardly placed fridge that jutted into the galley layout.

There was far too much stainless steel, chrome, and nickel and against the black, the kitchen lacked the soothing, neutral tones that characterize the rest of the home.

I really hated the sink and faucet, which looked dated. I also wasn't a fan of the black granite countertops, which are hard to clean.

I suspected that switching the cabinets from shaker to slab would have a massive effect on the overall look but wasn't sure we could afford changing out the cabinet fronts and countertops so began the research.

RENOVATION, CONTRACTOR, AND DIY CONSIDERATIONS

We first started with Ikea. For a $75 fee, they will send a professional measuring service to measure every nook and cranny of your kitchen. Our initial plan was to rip out all of the cabinets and countertops and replace with Ikea cabinets, new hardware, and a quartz countertop. Surprising to us, the costs quickly ramped up due to demolition, install and fabrication of the countertop. We were already close to $20,000 and another quote informed us that the countertop would be around $8,000. Since we knew we weren't renovating this kitchen to stay in this house longterm, we couldn't justify the cost.

I then reached out to a company that just repaints base cabinets and replaces cabinet fronts, Kitchen Saver. This was an interesting experience, to say the least. They showed up to our home with a two hour sales pitch including a slide deck presentation on an iPad, a suitcase of paint samples and hardware, and finally after several hours, announced the price, which was above $23,000 for just the cabinets and $34,000 to add the countertop replacement. I was honestly starting to feel hopeless.

My dad came to visit in October and after some further analysis, decided that we could do this ourselves for under $5,000. I was skeptical at first but he inspected the cabinetry and hinges and showed us the cabinets on CabinetDoors.com. We determined we could purchase unfinished slab cabinets and hire professional painters to paint the new cabinet fronts, as well as the base cabinets. When my dad came back for the Christmas holiday, he would install soft-close hinges, cabinet fronts, new hardware, and a new faucet. Obviously the labor would be free (thanks, Dad!) and we only had to pay for the painting, cabinets, and hardware. We would leave the countertops, in hopes that the new cabinets would cancel out the harshness of the black granite.

DESIGNING THE KITCHEN

Once the plan was in place, I needed to figure out the right cabinet color. I spent time searching the web (Pinterest! Domino! Architectural Digest! Dwell!) looking for kitchens with black countertops and lighter cabinetry that would flow with our neutral family room. While the look below is a bit more traditional, I started to feel my vision coming together with the color Sherwin Williams Anew Gray (seen below).

I also wanted gold hardware to achieve a warmer look in what had felt like a very cold kitchen. We wouldn't be changing the backsplash, a gray marble with dark grout so we also needed something that could warm that up. Once I found the above photo, I felt really good about our cabinet color choice and gold hardware.

HARDWARE

I decided that I would spend on the hardware, to really up the look of our "recycled" kitchen. I ordered several samples from Schoolhouse and Rejuvenation. The Schoolhouse sample had a very brassy, yellow tone that I worried would bring out the yellows in the wood floor, see below. The Rejuvenation samples, however, were the perfect champagne for the cabinet color so I ordered the knobs and pulls.

AFTER

I won't say the kitchen cabinet installation was easy (I also didn't even do it, phew!). My dad encountered a number of hiccups with the hinges and we had to shave down a cabinet that was slightly too wide. Installing the new soft close cabinets also took far longer than any of us expected and he was working through the very last day he was here. But the finished product is here and I am so thrilled with the results and so thankful we could do this entire renovation for under $6000. It truly does feel like we have a new kitchen. The countertop no longer bothers me because it flows with the look and feel of the kitchen and my parents gifted us with a new counter-depth fridge.

The new kitchen!!! Seriously I feel like we live in a new house. We probably spend the most time in this room and I feel such a new energy as we start this year. My moods in the morning are different when I make my coffee in this room and I love how the light reacts on the bright, warm cabinets.

We still have the same counters and honestly, I'm okay with it. Would I choose these countertops myself? Absolutely not. But they work.

We bought the faucet from Pottery Barn and I love how it's kind of a statement piece. I also purchased this runner from Ruggable to pull the green accents through that we have in the rest of the house and I think it's perfect.

A funny spot in the previous kitchen was this wine rack, which we had painted and then we repurposed into little cubbies for our small cups and bowls. It feels very Japanese to me.

Stay tuned for more posts coming soon featuring other updates we have made in the home over the past few weeks. Happy New Year, friends!