(More) Kitchen Plans

Putting this post together makes me SO excited to get this kitchen started...errr, finished!  We're zooming in on it next!  It won't be a super quick slide into the finish line since we're doing everything ourselves but we're hoping we can get it all in by summer's end, hopefully sooner.  I went into a little bit of detail about how we planned to open it up in the past but that's done and now it's onto the finer details of cabinet colors, counter tops, and a new backsplash.  Here's a peak of what we've nailed down so far:

Counter Tops

We are going with concrete!  I know it might sound crazy because your mind might drift outside to your sidewalk but this concrete, though it's the same stuff, will look and feel a whole lot different.  First, we'll add a dark charcoal pigment to the mix before we pour to deepen the color.  To pour them, we'll be using forms we bought from Z Counterform and pouring them in place, right on top of our cabinets.  Anthony actually poured several concrete counter tops several years ago but in forms he built inside our garage.  This will be a new technique for him and we're really excited about it.  We won't have to build forms outside and then get a crew to help us carry them into place when they're finished because they will already be there (our counters are big and concrete is super heavy!)  We were initially really skeptical about this direction because we wanted super smooth counters and none of the samples we poured got there.  But, we dug down deep in the interwebs and found a video showing how to grind these down without making a huge mess.  Pouring them in a form out of place also requires a little bit of grinding to smooth (not quite as much as pouring them in place) but Anthony uses running water and it makes a big wet mess outside which is fine because it's outside!  But we can't handle all that water inside so getting these smooth without the mess is key.  I'll have another post explaining more on that and the whole process when we're done.

In the beginning stages of planning the concrete counters, we had our minds set on going white.  ZCounterform makes a white concrete mix (you can also use white Portland cement) and we were going to try that plus mixing in a little bit of gray concrete to get a marbled look.  But the price is higher going white and we slowly fell in love with going darker so here we are.  Plus, white is IN right now which makes total sense because it's gorgeous but it appeals to our nature just a little to go against the grain.  ;) 

Cabinets

Our cabinets were custom made and even though they're many moons old, they're still in incredible shape, not to mention wood which is $$$ these days.  Plus, the uppers go all the way to the ceiling, a feature we swooned over when we were potential buyers of our house.  So, they stay but they're going to get painted.  I bought this paint sprayer* last year for this reason - to help us give them a super smooth paint job just like the pros.  The only drawback to them is that they have exposed hinges.  I researched and researched some more on how we could replace our hinges with hidden hinges but the hinges that we'd need cost...you might want to sit down for this number...$10 PER HINGE!  (That's more than double what hidden hinges for modern-day cabinets cost at big box stores!)  If you're doing a small bathroom, great.  Not too bad.  But we happen to have 48 hinges in our kitchen alone.  That's $480 + tax plus several blocks of wood we'd need to install those hinges and we all know the cost of wood right now.  Ha!  I know that when you're talking a kitchen remodel, almost $500 isn't really that bad, but when you're trying to keep costs down, it is a lot for something that would be nice but isn't really going to break the design.  So, we're either going to paint our existing hinges to match (they all work well and have pins so they should take paint well) or find generic, exposed hinges that are a close match in color to our paint colors.  I know we're going gold with hardware (these gold knobs* and these pulls*) and lots of people would just assume you'd go with gold hinges too but I'm a huge fan of matching the hinges as close as you can to the paint color of the cabinets to make them blend in as much as possible.

As far as paint color goes, our uppers are all going white (Pure White by SW).  The peninsula is going charcoal (Peppercorn by SW) to match the counter tops and we're still undecided with white or charcoal on the lowers around the rest of the space.  I have yet to decide what paint we're going to use but chances are, it'll be Valspar something.

This kitchen by McGee & Co. gives us some great inspiration:

We're also toying with the idea of building the refrigerator in like David Plus Dana did:

Here's a bad phone photo of ours currently:

And we've got to figure out the microwave situation over here:

An original-to-the-house wall oven was there before but since we upgraded to a gas range, we donated that and this spot became the perfect home for the microwave.  We saved all of the upper cabinet frames and doors where we removed that section of wall to the right, so I think we'll add a shelf somewhere in there and then cover it all up with some of those doors that we'll retrofit.

The non-cabinet side of the peninsula will get a moulding treatment which we're still settling on but it might be something similar to this by Orac Decor:

Right now, we've got all the options.

I tried to convince Anthony we needed to jump into the fluted moulding trend (I mean, how gorgeous is this island by Kristin Adam Design?!) but he gave that idea a hard pass.  Ha!  It's probably for the best though.  It would be charcoal in our kitchen and I think I'm making it fit into our existing kitchen design more than it actually does.  Plus, there will be a new trend in a few years so it's probably best to just stick with classic that will stand the test of time.

One last thing I really, really want to do is to customize the cabinet bases with faux legs, similar to these cabinets at Finding Lovely: 

Backsplash

What this will be is still very much up in the air.  We only have one side to work with so the price for tile shouldn't be too crazy.  A discount store like Southeastern Salvage is probably where we'll find our tile and we'll just end up going for something in our price range (low) that we like, not buying what we like no matter the price, though it's tempting.  You know how we (have to) do.  I have also been loving the continuous marble backsplashes I've been seeing around.  Something like this (photo from McGee & Co.):

We obviously don't have it in the budget to slap a big slab of marble to the back wall but it might be fun to do a temporary backsplash with this peel and stick paper* while we find the tile we're destined for.

Flooring

As much as I wish we could, we probably won't get the flooring replaced within this time frame we're working on the kitchen.  We've decided on going with a wood-look tile (there is some unevenness in the breakfast nook floor so tile will correct that) and we've been casually looking but it's been hard to find tile on sale or discounted in the amount we need.  We're replacing the flooring in the entire living space surrounding the kitchen - about 1250 square feet - and even though we've found some winners in the pale oak color arena, the inventory has always come up short.  Patience, patience, patience.  We'll get to rip out our worn and peeling linoleum someday hopefully soon. 

Lighting

We installed this light* in our kitchen shortly after we finished the ceilings but we'll need to find a new light to install over the sink.  Over the peninsula, we installed two of these ultra-slim recessed lights.  Pendants sound amazing over a peninsula, but with the range hood needing to be there, they'd cause too much commotion over ours.  

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Per our usual, this is going to be a low budget remodel with a (hopefully) high impact result.  With the new appliances (from Goedeker's - the best - we've bought appliances from them for two houses now!), wall removal, paint, flooring, counters, sink, faucet, lighting, and backsplash, my guess is that we'll end up with a "new" kitchen for about $6500-7000.  I'll keep trying to post updates as we go!  Can't wait to get to that finish line!

*These links are affiliate links which means that, if you click over and/or make a purchase through the link, we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.  I am an Amazon affiliate and also use other sources to link to products.  All of these links will lead you to things we actually paid for or that are similar to the item we paid for in case ours is thrifted/sold out/secondhand.  This extra money helps us with the costs of running the blog and buying paint.  ;) Thank you for your support and for fueling our love to share all things DIY!