Knowing that we’re not going to move into our new-old house right away, we’ve been trying to figure out what our priority will be now that we’ve started working on it. Felix is most excited to have an awesome shared work space, as am I. But the other 50% of me is excited to have a cute, fresh kitchen.
After talking more with my folks, who are our #1 go-to for all things home-related, they confirmed that the kitchen is one of the most painful renovations to undertake. So it makes sense that we pour our energy into tackling this one room first, especially since we’re currently not inhabiting it. I mean who cares if I don’t have a working sink, oven, or fridge unless I’m living there & cooking?!
I’ve had some basic ideas of things I love, but I’ve been thrown head first into designing my dream kitchen really quickly. Thanks to pinterest & google images I’ve been able to gather my ideas quickly and was able to walk them through with Felix (the Saturday morning our car was in the shop) & then run all of my our ideas by Bob to make sure they would work in our space.
This is our current kitchen:
Our kitchen has awesome birch cabinets – which I’ll be stripping and repainting white. But the fridge barely works, and the stove is inoperable. Basically the fridge, stove, dishwasher, and microwave are placeholder appliances as none of them really function – and the little that they do, I don’t trust.
I started off with my dream scenario, complete with a cute colorful smeg refrigerator. Seriously, don’t we all want one of those?! But after doing loads of research on appliances, I’ve decided I’d rather have a cohesive-looking kitchen rather than a little bit of this and that. So, sadly the smeg had to be taken off the list.
The kitchen isn’t quite large enough to be an eat-in kitchen. So we’ve decided to cut that out entirely, and we’re reconfigured nearly everything, including the cabinets, door and window, in order to maximize counter top space. If I don’t have a separate kitchen table, I NEED lots of counter top space to work on.
Okay… enough with my chatter and how about some pictures of all of my grand plans.
Apron Front Sink:
I love these basic, apron front white sinks. I’m also in love with these grey & white marble counter tops (since forever), not to mention the curved open shelves right next to the sink. *Love*
I have so many cabinets, most are too high for a 4’11” girl like myself. Even with a 6 foot ladder, I bet I couldn’t reach the uppermost ladder. So what’s a girl to do?! And please don’t say “call your husband to help” because if there’s one thing I hate is not being able to do something myself.
That’s where this comes in:
Kitchen Ladders! Is this not the coolest idea ever?! Sure, it’s going to be impractical when I want to get in front of it. But I have high hopes of making it removable from the track so I can store it neatly behind our kitchen door like so:
The ladder is one of those fun, wonderful things on Pinterest – but seem really frivolous to do in our own places. BUT I actually NEED this if I’m going to ever store stuff in those cabinets. I just can’t think of any better solution since I don’t want to have to haul a 9-foot ladder from the basement every time I want to get up into those cabinets. #Short Girl Problems
Large Windows:
Our current kitchen window is shot. It’s completely bad and has to get redone along with the inside and outside sash. This being the case, we’ve decided to move the window AND the door in our kitchen. So I’ve had to start thinking about windows along with everything else.
I don’t think I can get quite this large of a window in my house, but I like how open and bright this looks. So I want to attempt to get as large of a window as possible in order to get the most light in the back of the house.
Colorful Ceiling:
All of my small appliances are exactly this shade of aqua. My kitchenaid mixer, my garbage can, my dishes, etc. But pretty much all major items in the kitchen will be white (cabinets, appliances, walls with touches of black). This has made me think out of the box on how to incorporate more color, and I’m loving these bright ceilings to tie in my love of aqua. Honestly, I probably will be painting my ceiling a very close shade to the image above since it will match all of my small appliances, too.
Let’s talk about appliances:
I love baking & having a double oven has always been at the top of my wish list, right next to that smeg fridge. Well… after shopping for appliances, the double oven I love is like… 10k. NOT going to happen! Soo… I’ve been thinking out of the box to come up with a solution and this is it:
This is a Smeg cooktop, Piano Series that I want. It’s so vintage looking, but with modern-day performance. It’s fancy… but the price tag isn’t terrible which was surprising.
Over top of this cooktop, I’m thinking I could go for something like this:
Yeah, it’s a bit 60’s but it’s really cute. I haven’t decided if I like it better in white or in the stainless steel… that’s a decision for later anyhow.
And as you see, there is no oven yet… so this is what I’m pairing with it.
I’m having two of these puppies, side by side underneath the counter! This is the whirlpool Gold convection oven, which is not only reasonable, but also THE best rated built-in oven, via consumer reports. *Swoon*. Being a researcher, I have to research all appliances and whatnot before making any purchases. Knowing that this stove is a great performer makes me very happy. There’s not a lot of white stoves that I like out there, but this one is the one I do like.
I’m aiming for the under-counter oven to look kinda like this, next to the white cabinets:
Why white appliances??? Well…..I’m the crazy, weird person who doesn’t like stainless steel. So I’ve been on the hunt for white appliances I’d be happy with. While this Whirlpool oven is a bit on the modern-looking side for me, I like the stainless steel details as it will pair nicely with the Smeg cooktop.
I’m most likely going to get the refrigerator and dish washer to match (since Felix likes the fridge).
I have oodles and oodles of more pictures and ideas for the kitchen – we haven’t even gotten to hardware & lighting yet. So let’s just call this part 1 of my Dream Kitchen post.
Cheers & have a lovely Thanksgiving!
In: House Adventures
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