One Room Challenge - Week 3
It’s week 3 of the #oneroomchallenge and we’re excited to share with you our design concept for the kitchen! Originally we had planned on keeping the top floor as the rental, so the foundation for this kitchen remodel is based on simpler details with the opportunity to drum up interest in the floor color and additive decor. We designed the cabinet layout using Ikea’s web design tool to make sure we ordered the correct dimensions and planned on incorporating richer materials like a salvaged butcher block counter, vintage swing lamp and handmade tile to give texture and character. The pale checkerboard Forbo marmoleum flooring might be the scene stealer in its baby blue and buttercream color combo. Make sure to check out our “Shop Our Renovation” section on the website to see links to the product we’re using! Construction is almost done and soon we’ll be painting and installing our flooring. We can’t wait!
Keeping things modern and playful up here felt like the right move, especially with all of the natural daylight that we get coming in from the 3 large windows on the back of the house and the additional skylight above the fridge. Eventually we want to drop the kitchen to the Parlor floor below and alter this small room into a bathroom, so instead of tiling the floor we decided to look at installing cinch n click marmoleum flooring from Forbo. Its easy to install/deinstall, bio-based and water resistant making it a great choice for a utilitarian floor. As you can tell everything is very compact - this will be our 2nd time in our relationship having a 24” range, but I think this time around it’ll be a lot nicer with this Smeg we found on Ebay for 40% off! We’re going to imbed a hidden vent in the cabinet above the stove to make sure everything is circulating properly. Wish us luck with the 18” dishwasher!
The butcher block was found on craigslist and turned out to be a really nice one made of Maple. A little bit of refinishing and oiling is all we’ll need to get it looking really nice! As you can see in the plan we might incorporate a little island with the leftover butcher block counter to give us a wee bit more counter space! Overall we’re really excited to implement this 60’s Victorian intervention feel, with these complimentary colored grids in different patterns with light wood. It’ll feel cozy and vibrant. We feel that the Orion light from Schoolhouse will set that mood perfectly in polished nickel.
For appliances we decided to stick with traditional stainless steel for its minimal, industrious vibe a la Donald Judd paired with hardwood counters and objects like the end grain cutting board that we make (available in our shop!) and the Danish spice grinder in Oak from Schoolhouse. We’re excited to get our samples in for the Fireclay tile that we chose for the backsplash - its called Roundabout 4 in Gesso! It’s from a collaboration with Block Shop Textiles, another favorite West Coast company. We’ll have to wait awhile for those to come in because they are handmade and have a 12 week lead time, but thats okay because the backsplash can go in at any time. I can’t tell you how much we love our Berkey Water Filter and our Technivorm Coffee Brewer - two investment items that we literally use everyday and are obsessed with.
Here are some progress shots from the upstairs! Walls are hung and mudded but the trim unfortunately still looks pretty bad so we’re searching for an alternative path forward with those…wish us luck!
