Our Kitchen Renovation Plan

The title of this post should really be “Our Kitchen Renovation Plan, For Now.” Y’all know I will change my mind 8,000 times before the end of this renovation! Luckily, we are working with a kitchen architect, so my indecisiveness has been reined in significantly. We are also restricted by a tricky floor plan that I will detail in a different post once the new one has been finalized. For those who have been here a while, you know that we have been dreaming about renovating our kitchen since the moment we moved in. It feels great to finally be here almost 3 years later.

Why are we renovating our kitchen?

Where do I begin? It’s falling apart. It doesn’t suit our lifestyle. It’s dark. It’s small. I could go on, but the main takeaway is that kitchens functioned differently 60 years ago when our house was built. It is a lovely kitchen for a 1958 house and I am grateful that it is original, however, it does not suit our needs in 2022. There is about 12 x 12 inches of useable counterspace. The oven is so small it doesn’t fit a sheet pan, nor does it close all the way, making it hard to correctly bake anything. One of the four stove burners does not work. The countertops slope and cause uneven cooking on the stovetop. The Hudee ring around the sink leaks into the cabinets below the sink. The cabinets are narrow and deep, making it hard to find anything or fit larger items. The sink is not centered on the window. The kitchen itself faces North into our three seasons room, so the space feels like a dark cavern all day. The basement staircase next to the kitchen curves at an odd angle, making it difficult to use for even the most graceful humans. Finally, the space is not utilized to its full potential, and when you have a 1000 square foot house, you want every inch optimized.

Is a gut renovation really necessary?

I know there will be mid century and old house purists who will cringe when we rip out the entire kitchen. But if you read the paragraph above, you will understand that there really isn’t anything worth saving. The cabinets are wood, but they are small and chipped and moldy. The countertops are warped from time and use, the appliances have GOT. TO. GO. The floor is stained linoleum. It has to be a gut renovation and I have known that since before I bought the house.

What is the kitchen renovation timeline?

Short answer: we don’t know! Long answer: it started 2 months ago when Colin removed the wall between the kitchen and dining room. This weekend he is going to start demo on the pony wall in our dining room. That needs to be taken out because we are remodeling the top portion of the staircase. The staircase will happen next, then we will really get into our kitchen renovation plans. Like I said before, we are working with a kitchen architect on the floor plan. She has been a dream to work with and I have zero regrets hiring a professional for this part of the process. She is currently finalizing the design that we can then take to cabinet and countertop fabricators. We plan to start appliance shopping this week since the supply chain delays could be significant. Ideally the entire renovation will be finished by the holidays. Don’t quote me on that 😉

What will the new kitchen look like?!

Details are still being worked out regarding the design, but I below is a mood board for the general look and feel that we are hoping to achieve. I also post a lot of inspirational kitchen ideas on Pinterest. For those interested, you can find that here! This mood board is a result of many hours on Pinterest, design blogs, and Instagram, as well as reading magazines and design books. While we wanted to remodel the kitchen immediately after moving in, I’m glad we waited. I took time to let the house influence the design, grow my personal design taste, and figure out how we live together in our home. So here is our kitchen renovation design plan-

Our Kitchen Renovation Plan