Our Fresh New Kitchen / Sun Room Transformation

I had just finished cleaning up the kitchen and mopping the floors and since no one was making lunch or a snack, I decided to snap some pictures and share our fresh new kitchen / sun room transformation with you. I’m so happy with how it all turned out!

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But first, let’s take a look at how the kitchen looked when we bought this house back in January.

Kitchen Before

Entering the kitchen from the dining room:

As you can see, it was in really bad shape. Everything needed to be gutted and re-configured to make it more functional for us. We decided to close up the corner doorway to the sun room and wrap the kitchen cabinets around that corner instead.

We also made the small opening over the sink much larger to let in additional light and take advantage of the beautiful views.

View from inside the kitchen looking at the dining room:

Originally, there was a partial wall between the kitchen and the dining room.

View from dining room into kitchen:

After we removed that wall, everything felt much more bright and open.

Across from the sink, there was a refrigerator and an oddly placed stove. The door leads to the garage.

We decided to move the stove to a different wall and use the space for a floor to ceiling pantry. Then we realized we had enough unused space on the left side of the refrigerator to turn into a small laundry room. I was so excited about this because the washer and dryer were originally in the garage.

So now lets get to the after pictures!

Kitchen After

We continued the hardwood floors into the kitchen and then had all the floors sanded and stained the same white-washed color. And of course, you knew I would do an all white kitchen! Originally, I planned to go with a shaker style cabinet again, but once I saw this modern bead board cabinet, I was hooked. I loved that it was a slightly updated version from my previous shaker cabinets, but still simple and casual. This style was hard to find though, so we had a local cabinet maker custom make them for us. For the walls, I wanted to stick with white tile, but instead of using my go-to subway tile, I decided to go with an alternating (but still, random) pattern using a square 5″ tile and rectangular 2.5″ x 5″ tile. This felt a little risky to me ( I lost sleep over it!), because I wasn’t quite sure how it would turn out, but my tile guy did awesome and I love how it turned out.

It’s so much more open now and the views are everywhere!

I love the look of no upper cabinets and I really wanted to do that in this kitchen. Once we reconfigured the sink wall, we had the perfect opportunity to put open shelves on each side of the window/opening. I put our everyday dishes on the left side of the sink, near the stove. This makes it super convenient for everyone to grab a plate or bowl and dish up their food. This also tends to be the area we make sandwiches, breakfast, or snacks, so having the plates in an easy-to-grab location made sense.

And our coffee station is on the other side of the window. We’re big coffee drinkers, so I knew I needed a good setup. Tim likes brewed coffee and I love my Chemex, so we we have space for both. And the drawer underneath holds our coffee supplies, like filters, stir spoons, and sweetener.

I love how light and airy the open shelves make our kitchen feel. I think open shelves can feel tricky and intimidating to pull off, but I really think the key is having pretty everyday dishes. Just keep it simple and add some plants and you’re good to go!

Below you can see the refrigerator wall with the laundry room cabinets on the left and the pantry cabinets on the right. It was important to me that this wall of cabinets was symmetrical (with the refrigerator in the center), so we spent a lot of time talking and planning this area out with our contractor and cabinet guy. I’m very happy with how it turned out and I love the convenience of having my washer/dryer right in the kitchen. I feel like I’m always doing laundry, so having it right in the kitchen makes it super easy to quickly toss a new load in or switch things from the washer to the dryer. Previously, my laundry room was in the basement and I really hope to never have to do that again!

Sun Room Before

Here’s a quick look back at the sun room before (look at those views!):

Sun Room After

And here it is now:

We ripped up the old tiles and continued the hardwood floors into the sun room. We also updated all of the windows except the two largest picture windows, which were still in great shape. The sun room is the perfect spot to watch the morning sunrise, take an afternoon nap, or enjoy the city lights at night.

The opposite view below:

So that’s it! Hope you enjoyed my little tour. Sometimes when I look back at pictures or remember how this house used to look when we first laid eyes on it, it’s hard to believe it’s even the same home. It’s come so far!

Sources:

Modern Beadboard Cabinets : Custom

Wall Paint : Dunn Edwards Whisper White

Range : Zline (Lowe’s)

Refrigerator / Dishwasher : LG (Lowe’s)

Floor : Bona Arctic White (one coat)

Range Hood

Countertops : Caesarstone Fresh Concrete

Faucet

Dining Room Basket Light : Etsy