Sista's Fabulous Kitchen Renovation

Hello, dear friends.  I have a very special treat for you today.  Sista did a kitchen renovation over the Summer and I have been pleading, begging, blackmailing, and bribing her to do a post about it.  Evidently, something worked.  I wish I knew which one so I could do it again.

Sista and her Mista and two sons live in a beautiful home in Connecticut.  You can read past posts about her home and  her flair for entertaining here, here here and here.

Without further ado, please welcome my Sista.

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The previous owner of our 1810 house told us that our kitchen was featured in House and Garden magazine in the 1970s.  Apparently, the owner at the time was a graphic designer and bartered with the mag to redo her kitchen.  Her husband enjoyed cooking and insisted on commercial appliances (before people were putting them in their kitchens). 

When touring the house fourteen years ago these appliances somehow overshadowed the salmon walls and globe lights leftover from the 1970’s.  The Garland stove (same model as Julia’s)…

….and the Traulsen refrigerator sold my husband on the house. Before we knew it, we were the proud owners of a 200 year old money pit.

Before moving in, we did a partial reno of the kitchen and adjacent butlers pantry – leaving all the original cabinets.  The renovation included replacing old wallpaper, painting the cabinets,  hanging new lighting and laying reclaimed barn wood on the linoleum floors that covered the original wood flooring (they couldn’t be touched because of the presence of lead…oh the joys of an old house).

While our old vintage kitchen had a certain charm, and we have many great memories, 14 years was long enough to live with cabinets that were older than me (and perhaps even older than Sista!).

Time to renovate!

I knew exactly what I wanted:  floor to ceiling white subway tiles with dark grout, white cabinets open shelving and black window frames.  I was going for an industrial/chef’s kitchen kind of vibe with a French touch.  I wanted to try and keep the original stainless steel countertops that I love and would be a fortune to replace.

We began by getting bids from contractors and found that not only was our budget off (by about 100%), but some of the contractors would not even bid on the project.  Many did not want to risk putting subway tile over wallpaper.  Removing it was just too big a job (apparently, there is no shortage of work in the Litchfield Hills).

While meeting with a carpenter one day – I had a Joanna Gains moment …. SHIPLAP!!!  My carpenter initially did not know what I was talking about, but when I showed him pictures he said it was doable – and we could still use the subway tile sparingly.

To keep the budget down I decided to act as the GC and hire everyone individually – I expected I was asking for trouble, but believe it or not, in the end it was a good decision – it went pretty smoothly and we estimate we saved about $20,000.

So here is the quick tour of the finished product.  It is probably not Houzz-worthy, but I must say I really love it.

A big change was replacing the farm table with a round table.   Sista can tell you I am obsessed with round tables.  To accommodate the new table, we needed to cut down the bench that we had put in 10 years ago.

 In doing so, I decided to make a sleeping area for the dogs which has worked out great.

Well only sometimes.

I knew I wanted comfy armchairs and looked all over the flea markets.  I finally found these, they were only $100 each – but they were yellow.

They were like new – it seemed such a waste to reupholster them, so I thought I would try to paint them.  I painted the frames first.

And then I painted the fabric.

I used Annie Sloan’s chalk paint, and stenciled them for a grain sack look.  It seemed like a crazy idea so I was fully prepared to have to reupholster them, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well they came out.  I was concerned that the fabric would feel stiff – which it did until I sanded it. Now the finish is soft – no one can believe they are painted!  I stenciled them with our house number and date.

Salvaging the stainless steel counter caused a little drama. My husband called me on a business trip to say that our dramatic   carpenter was concerned that the replacement of the countertop on the new cabinets might end up crushing them.   No problem – only thousands of dollars and another eight weeks, Well, we took the risk and we are glad that we did.

The dramatic carpenter also did not think he would be able to drill directly into the tile for the open shelving…. But if there is a will there is a way.

The one thing that didn’t work as planned was that I had envisioned using an old beam to hang over the sink for my copper collection.  We bought the beam, and for a myriad of reasons it didn’t work out, but I actually like the way the pots look against the brick over the stove.

In the original kitchen, we had 3 doors lined up – one to the upstairs, one to the pantry and one to the basement. I decided that barn doors would give us a lot more space and delegated the construction to my mister (not historically handy) and my # 2 (handier).  They thought I was crazy – but guess what?  With some instructions from the carpenter, they did it… and are so damn proud of themselves!  The chalkboards are great for grocery lists and messages.

Now… to the room we call the butler’s pantry.  Originally I wanted marble counter tops, but opted for butcher block to save cha-ching.  I must say I like them at least as much and maybe more for this room. 

Here we kept the original cabinets painting the bottom cabinets a high-gloss black and the top cabinets semi-gloss white.  I decided to go with un-lacquered brass hardware.

OK – so this is what I am particularly proud of:  I had the carpenter take out the panels of one of the cabinets so I could replace them with glass.  I then etched the glass with a bee/ fleur de lis pattern – it is hard to see in the picture, but it came out way better than I thought it would.  Who knew?

We also replaced an antique ice box (original to the house that actually had an external door in which the ice man would place the ice) with a wine fridge and my very favorite thing in my new kitchen…….  an ice maker!  (Sista does not get this obsession I have with clear ice!)

I think the butler’s pantry is my favorite part of the renovation.  Now all that I need is a butler.

Finally, in a Chip and Joanna moment, we decided to ship lap the ceiling of the kitchen and painted them semi-gloss (walls are satin).  Glad we did this as the light reflects nicely.

Etsy, paypal and I became very close through this renovation.  The lazy susan, hand painted fabric for the bench, barn door handles and light switch plates are just a few of the things that I found on etsy. 

So that is it – my kitchen.  It may not be perfect, but it is a reflection of me and it is our new happy place. 


Thank you dear Sista, for a fabulous post.  Remind me to put an extra little something in your Christmas stocking this year.

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