Before moving into our new home we were dreaming up plans for this outdated kitchen, the two biggest plans were to replace all of the cabinet doors with a shaker style and to upgrade all appliances to a professional line of stainless steel ones. Well, neither of those happened, but what did happen was a super budget friendly kitchen renovation 😉

We ended up keeping the original cabinets because they were in such great shape and painted them white, specifically this white- Behr swiss coffee. Initially we were going to replace the flooring and dig out a gas line to add in a professional gas range but because we really wanted to be moved into our new home before Christmas we opted to save the flooring and stick with an electric range. We purchased Kenmore appliances for the refrigerator, range and dishwasher. To be honest I don’t love them. My biggest regret is that we didn’t go with a professional electric range like this one, not only for cooking but for the overall look of our kitchen. I think within the next few years we will either upgrade to a range like that or dig in the gas line and switch over.

We had big plans to do all concrete countertops, but again it just wasn’t going to fit into our timeline and we ended up finding these gorgeous (and very affordable!) countertops from Ikea. They were very easy to install and have held up well so far. We removed the old tile backsplash and installed breadboard. I painted it with a glossy white to help protect it from any splatters. Our sink is also Ikea and was another great deal. I would have gone with the double bowl but there was not enough room with our stove being right next to the sink. We added this faucet . It was a bit of a splurge but I think it was well worth it in functionality and style.

We added a kitchen island, using these prefab cabinets from Lowes and made the countertops out of pine and sealed with butcher block sealer. We also added a coffee bar using another set of those prefab cabinets from Lowes and DIY concrete countertops, but I will save that for another post.

Lastly, we built a custom hood range, total cost was around $20- not including the fan (still haven’t found the right fan!). We just used pine, stained it the color we liked (same as our kitchen table) and nailed it up. I love not having a microwave right above the oven, it makes all the different in the style of our kitchen. We thought we could completely live without a microwave but it turns out it’s pretty useful for reheating that cup of tea you never get to finish in the morning 😉 So, we bought a tiny little one and have it hidden in the corner next to our refrigerator.

Overall i’m so happy with how the kitchen turned out. We are still working on finding the right lighting for it. We need to purchase covers for the recessed lights and something to hang over the island. I added this rug by the sink to help break up the space between the sink and island.

And here’s a few photos from the renovation…. If we were to do it again I would have done the professional appliances and had someone else paint the cabinets (i’m a terrible painter, and it took forever). Have you ever done a kitchen renovation? Let me see your before and after’s, leave a link to your blog post in the comments!