By Reed Daulton, planitdiy.com
Now that I have retired, I’ve noticed my household chores are growing by the day. My lovely wife still has a few years before she reaches the promised land, so it’s only fair that I do a little housework between napping, golfing and playing the lottery.
I never thought our kitchen was that bad when she complained until I started using it every day to make dinner. It took me about three weeks of burning food and trying to find space for groceries and dishes to figure out we needed to upgrade.
More Cabinets and Counter Space
Before the remodel, we had a real issue with space. Every time we returned from the grocery store, we were reorganizing cabinets to fit everything. Then we would forget where we put stuff. So we took advantage of a smaller wall that wasn’t being used to add cabinet space and a wine glass rack. We also elected to have a few more decorative cabinets to open the space a little and create some visual appeal.
We chose a lighter wood with a washed finish for the majority of the cabinets to brighten the space. We also added some black-antiqued cabinetry to go with our black appliances. We also added some spindles to the island to give it more of a furniture feel.
Leftovers
My wife just had to have this black cabinet with glass doors, but by the end of the renovation we just didn’t know where to put it. We had some leftover granite from where the sink was cut out, so I had the hardware store round the corners and we put it on top of the cabinet. Finally, I added some legs to give it a little more cohesiveness with the island, and we were finished! Never throw away anything when remodeling a kitchen until you’re completely finished.
One-Of-A-Kind Backsplash
We really wanted to go with a natural stone as the backsplash, but we wanted a splash of color. We originally wanted some rusty colored glass tiles, but we ended up finding some darker slate-colored tiles. Glass tiles are really expensiv,e so we bought a couple square sheets of them and mixed them in with the more affordable natural tiles to create some variety in both size and color. It did take a bit of extra work, but it was worth it for a one-of-a-kind kitchen backsplash.
A Room Full of Light
Before the remodel, our kitchen did not have very good lighting, which made it very uninviting. We wanted this new space to welcome people and be a place where the family could gather and chat over some homemade spaghetti and meatballs.
We put recessed lighting in the ceiling, but we also added some more decorative lighting over the kitchen sink. My wife had her heart set on upcycling some old glass bottles into light pendants for this area, but red glass bottles are few and far between, so we compromised with these red pendants that were ready to install—no extra work necessary.
