Nov 5, 20145 min read

One Room Challenge {Petite Kitchen} Week 6 FINALE

{Originally Published November 5, 2014}

Welcome to the final week of the One Room Challenge! If you have been following along from the beginning then you have seen me and my father completely transform our client’s kitchen over the past 6 weeks. If you are just tuning in today, you are in for a big treat because I’ll be sharing those requisite Before photos along with our super sparkly After shots courtesy of Courtney Apple.

Courtney was such a trooper and stopped by this Monday afternoon to photograph the kitchen. We were literally cleaning up paint cans, fastening electrical plates and pulling up masonite (wood floor protection) right before she showed up. We could not have timed this puppy any closer. Truth be told, we aren’t completely done; the wood floors need their final (3rd) coat of finish and so we did not move the dining room furniture back into the space. My clients have also not filled in the new cabinets with all of their kitchen goodies. I brought over a few of my own stuff to do a little shelf styling. Overall though, I think you’ll get a good sense of the new space.

{Need to Catch Up?}

WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4 WEEK 5

Before we renovated the kitchen it was a dark, cramped space. At 8’7 by 14’8 not only was it not very functional to work in, it was impossible to photograph! (Helllooo how can I show a proper Before and After if I can’t even photograph the room?)

View from the Dining Room Before

It took a little convincing, but our clients agreed to let us remove the wall between the kitchen and the dining room.

View from the Dining Room Week 3

Now, with the wall gone, it is a completely different. Open, bright, and incredibly inviting. Actually words don’t do it justice, without further ado, check out the space today…

Hello kitchen of my dreams, welcome to my reality.

A key step in this transformation was tweaking the layout, which went far beyond removing a wall.

We moved the refrigerator off the right wall freeing up that space for a snack zone. This is the spot for the microwave, toaster, coffee-maker. I love placing them all here because they don’t take up valuable space on the prep counters. Dishes, glasses and cutlery will also be stored in this area.

Above is the old wall and below is the new snack zone.

Courtney’s image (above) depicts the counter all clean and pretty.

I brought over my own coffee maker and toaster to show how it will look once my clients move in.

Yikes, her pictures are better! Anywho.

Special planned details include custom cabinets with walnut interiors. Helllllo Sexy surprise.

In the old kitchen the left side (dining wall) was pretty under-utilized. There was one storage cabinet and a table that was too large for the room.

We removed the wall and added an island that houses the sink, dishwasher and pull-out trash and recycling bins.

The island cabinets and back door are both natural walnut. This makes me happy.

Speaking of the island, I must mention the fabulous waterfall countertop! Quartzite in all its glory baby.

I selected the part of the slab with the most movement to be on the side.

So it starts all colorful and busy and gradually becomes lighter on the countertop surface.

A snap I took…

My client still wanted a garden window to house a few plants. We replaced the existing one with a taller unit (to make most of the wall height) and moved it over to make room for the pantry and refrigerator.

We added a quarzite counter to the garden window. It matches the countertops and is such a practical surface for plants.

While the old garden window had your typical colonial casing, we dropped the trim and did tile all the way up the wall. It’s a much cleaner look and makes the area around the window seem larger.

To the left of the window is the refrigerator and pantry. The refrigerator has white panels to help it blend in with the pantry. Stainless would have felt so heavy in this small space!

To the right of the window is the range and hood. Otherwise known as, My favorite part of the kitchen! To further my mission of #minimizestainless I recommended my clients purchase a 30″ Viking range in black. This isn’t your builder-grade black appliance, it is so luxe and fabulous.

And then there is the custom hood, which I sorta consider my baby. I conceived the idea, sketched it up, chose and finishes and sent it off to my cabinet-maker, Christiana Cabinetry to turn it into a reality. And they did a gorgeous job! (They always do.)

If the hood is my baby than perhaps the tile is my lover. We have a tumultuous affair, this tile and I. Between missing colors, incorrect patterns and delays in production, I was pretty sure I wanted to break up with it before it was even delivered But New Ravenna pulled it together and sent us some gorgeous tiles. I have to give props to my dad and our carpenter Angelo for doing an excellent job setting the mosaic. Plus a thank you to Angela at Devon Tile for laying out the pattern and determining the proportion of the color gradient. Don’t you just love how the color get lighter as it goes up the wall? I do. Just enough color, but not too much.

I love how the tile interplays with the “Aquias Blue” Quartzite. Talk about soulmates.

The bowl and cake stand our from our sponsor Lamps Plus.

PS- I would not recommend using cupcakes for staging in a kitchen because you just may end up eating ALL of them after the photo shoot. Whoopsies.

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Last but certainly not least is my successful “experiment” on the counter stools. We took the Wayfair Otus Stool, which was originally stainless, and sent it to our powder coaters. Powdercoating magnetically bonds the metal finish to the surface making it much more durable than a simple spray paint job. It also looks about 100% nicer than spray paint- more like polished brass than paint. I’m officiall obsessed.

One wide angle for good measure, and that my friends is the Petite Kitchen.

SOURCES

Design- Build: Andrew and Naomi Stein/ Design Manifest

Custom Cabinetry: Christiana Cabinetry

Refrigerator / Range / Hood / Dishwasher / Microwave / Sink / Faucet / Instant Hot

Countertops “Aquias Blue Quartzite / Backsplash Tile

Cabinet Hardware / Pendant Lights / Wayfair Otus Stool (customized by DM-powdercoated in “spun gold”)

Cake Stand / White Bowl (with apples) / Blue Flower Vase / Blue Bowl (with lemons)

Dishes and Glasses (Vintage / Gold Flatware / Vases on Window / Staron Window

Wall Paint = Sherwin Williams “Dewy” / White Cabinet Paint = Benjamin Moore “Snowfall White”

Photography by Courtney Apple

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I hope you enjoyed our little renovation. I know my clients are beyond thrilled with the result. They put complete trust in us and went with a bunch of my hairbrained ideas. Dad and the team executed the design brilliantly. Now it’s time for my clients to get cooking! As for Dad and I, we are on to our next renovation. We begin a new kitchen remodel on Monday. No, we never do stop. Yes, we do sleep.