Unless you want to rip out your kitchen and start again (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t like a brand new kitchen) utilising ideas that will dramatically change the appearance and functionality of your kitchen can be a great option and cost a fraction of the price of new. Not to mention you won’t be living through major destruction and builders mess. This kitchen looks ok, but could do so much better.
Work had already been done to improve this space. You can see below that the kitchen had no natural light and borrowed what it could from the laundry (now the Butler’s Pantry) and the windows in the back family room. The large opening where stools sit would’ve been the back window of the house before an addition back in the 1980s. First I painted out the warm butter yellow with Dulux White Watsonia. 2 skylights brought more light than I could imagine and a new tap brought the sink area up to date.
After installing the Butler’s Pantry the rest of the kitchen was looking tired. If I did replace the kitchen it wouldn’t be in this location, so a cosmetic reno was my only option. This space had 3 main issues:
- not enough benchspace
- cupboards situated at an uncomfortable height above the benchtop. The coffee machine struggled to fit in the space, and the cupboards looked awkward from any angle, especially at the left of the image above
- the kitchen didn’t have personality. At the centre of the home I wanted something that had a wow factor
Check out this old wallpaper! The bench space was narrow and discovering 3 layers of tiles on top of each other equalled another 2.5cm of width. The old cupboards were removed to allow for a large open space that highlighted the massive 13″ ceilings.
We put up new plasterboard and the room already looked bigger.
The wallpaper is Piccadilly from Cole and Sons. It has metallic copper and silver to add extra interest and a bit of bling. I used a laser level to mark both vertical and horizontal lines and ended up with a small gap at the top left corner than ran down to nothing at the bottom left. Fortunately with everything else looking straight it blended into the adjoining wall, and is just the reality of decorating an older home. Nothing is square! This is an area that rarely gets wet, so I wasn’t concerned about using a good quality washable wallpaper here. I added a narrow border tile in black at the benchtop and siliconed the gap for a watertight join.
You might be wondering how this kitchen will cope having lost 5 cupboards of storage. Apart from additional units in the Butler’s Pantry there is a new custom built island in the middle of the kitchen. This delivered the equivalent of 4 cupboards of storage and 2 double width drawers along with masses of bench space. Details to come soon.
The glass shelf was custom made by a local glazier and handmade ceramic handles and a copper lantern, both from India, complete the space.
Not a new kitchen, but a satisfying facelift for the old girl.