Craftsman Kitchen Renovation Beginnings

[nhguy]

We are in the first inning of a kitchen renovation. My wife and I both like cooking and our stove in a corner and 45 inches of counter space needs to change. We have contacted the help of a kitchen shop for some design ideas, but have been less than impressed so far. The plan is to keep it as close to in keeping with the house as possible yet have modern appliances. We own Bungalow Kitchens and The New Bungalow Kitchens for some ideas. We have a local cabinet shop coming in with some designs, but we may talk to an independent kitchen designer for a plan. It's a big project and getting it right is so important. Our timeline is either 2020 or 2021 we are in no rush. Has anyone else in our group done a craftsman style kitchen?

[Willa]

I had a horrifying kitchen in my 1898 house. It had terrible cheap MDF cabinets (1970's?) that were just a little big, so the PO CUT the 4.75" trim to make them fit. There was textured 4 x 4" ceramic tile, that had been painted Cheez Whiz orange. There was also a folding closet door on the powder room, adjacent to the kitchen. The walls were turmeric yellow, with dark charcoal grey trim and cabinet color. The floors were some "neutral" peel and stick vinyl tiles. The fridge was giant for the space and obstructed about 40% of the drawers from being opened fully.

On the bright side, there was the original tongue and groove wainscotting, the original window and back door, and most of the original trim. There were the original wood floors a couple of layers below.

Challenges included 4 doorways and a large window opening in a 140 sq ft room, terrible plaster, one wall that had the original chimney below.

I had an antique cabinet from a butler's pantry(CL), an antique wall hung sink with a drainboard(CL), a vintage pendant light(CL), and a small (22") refurbished 1950's electric stove. I acquired an antique cabinet that I put casters on for a work surface and extra storage, bought antique trim that was a good enough match on Kijiji, found a small porcelain vintage task light for over the sink, and made a pendant light for over my work surface. I also bought a couple of new doors that were very similar to the original back door. I also bought a smaller fridge.

I worked with an older carpenter who was willing to humour my ideas, and used a plumber that was agreeable about installing the antique sink, etc. The butler's pantry cabinet was a little too long for the longest wall, and had to have a single section trimmed off to make it fit. A little bit of plumbing and electrical needed to get moved around to make things be in the right places. There was a LOT of plaster repairs and drywall patches. The vinyl floor and subfloor - with its billion nails was removed, and I painted the floorboards.

It's not a craftsman kitchen, but an approximation for what I felt was sympathetic to what might have been here originally ? The four doorways and windows made the placement of anything a real challenge. Two years later, I am still happy with the kitchen, and the only change I would have made is to bump the sink over about two inches. I did have the sink placed about 4" higher than what is standard - and that was a huge improvement for my back. If you or your wife are tall, I encourage you to consider the heights of your sink and work surfaces.

I don't know if this helps with what you are contending with, but it's what I did. I just could not stomach a) the kitchen as it was - and no coat of paint could have helped or b) any kind of modern kitchen cabinetry, or plans involving an island, etc. I don't entertain so that was also not a consideration.

There is lots of information online about planning a good kitchen. The principles are sound, but you will probably need to ignore current design trends.

This is what I started with, with the colors really desaturated by the realtor:

realtorkitch4.jpg (34.79 KiB) Viewed 4184 times

realtorkitch.jpg (41.04 KiB) Viewed 4184 times

The actual horror colors I suffered through for 12 long months:

kitchwint17.JPG (736.54 KiB) Viewed 4184 times

After about 6 weeks of intensive repairs and improvements, the cabinet was installed:

_DSC0002.jpeg (1.17 MiB) Viewed 4183 times

Work surface cabinet. Casters help to elevate height but also because the only heat register is on the floor below.

_DSC0004.jpg (1.34 MiB) Viewed 4184 times

Looking towards the powder room. The trim around the door is the antique replacement trim, which is not a perfect match, but was the best I could find and the right width:

kitchafter.jpeg (1.48 MiB) Viewed 4184 times

As kitchen renovations go, this was on a very low budget. I didn't do anything major, like move walls around. It was exhausting, but made a huge improvement.

[nhguy]

Wow, that's an amazing transformation. I noticed the door swing change on your powder room. We have a laundry room off the kitchen and I'd prefer to have the door swing into that space, which would allow is to move the refrigerator to the right. Under the vinyl is plywood, so I believe we have hardwood lurking beneath it, what condition it's in is a mystery. I have also seen beaded wainscoting on the walls behind the cabinets, painted fire engine red.
The yellow plastic tile on the back splash and wainscoting may be hiding more of it, but I don't want to start digging into it just yet. As we move ahead I will post updates. Thanks for sharing your adventure.

[GinaC]

Willa, that's gorgeous! I love what you did with the floors! It really adds some nice color.

I'm in the planning stage for my kitchen, but I'm not changing my layout save for moving the stove over 6" so I can use one of the drawers without having to open the oven. When I first looked at the house, I thought, "Who does this?" Then I found out that the current owner did all the work himself. His work isn't bad, but he has no design sense whatsoever.

Anyway, I'm really thinking about ordering RTA cabinets from Barker. www.barkercabinets.com They are custom made and apparently good quality. The savings comes because you have to measure and plan and order them yourself, and of course put them together and install them.

[nhguy]

Willa, that's gorgeous! I love what you did with the floors! It really adds some nice color.

I'm in the planning stage for my kitchen, but I'm not changing my layout save for moving the stove over 6" so I can use one of the drawers without having to open the oven. When I first looked at the house, I thought, "Who does this?" Then I found out that the current owner did all the work himself. His work isn't bad, but he has no design sense whatsoever.

Anyway, I'm really thinking about ordering RTA cabinets from Barker. http://www.barkercabinets.com They are custom made and apparently good quality. The savings comes because you have to measure and plan and order them yourself, and of course put them together and install them.

Hello Gina,
I looked at Barker also and read a lot about them on houzz.com. Their product sounds top notch and fairly easy to put together. One suggestion I read was to use the planning software on ikea.com then make your order through Barker. I just joined the Ikea and am planning on giving the software a go today. I used the design software on Houzz for the floor plan I posted.

[Willa]

I seem to recall that there is at least one US company that makes better quality doors designed to fit on Ikea cabinetry ? Ikea irks me on many levels, but I have heard that their kitchen cabinetry is quite well designed, with lots of configuration and accessory options to make the best use of the cabinet space.

Shaker style wood doors (varnished or painted) with vintage type latches and pulls would look similar to early 20th c. cabinet design. One thing I think that was very smart from that time period was that cabinets went all the way to the ceiling. Granted, you need a step stool to access them, but it was a good place to stash things that are seldom used like holiday decor or specialty kitchen items. It also makes the best use of the space. That space on top of the cabinets (your house looks like there is 18" or more) is just an invitation to place decorative whatnots up there, that will soon get a layer of that sticky kitchen grime, unless you are a super fastidious cleaner.

If I was doing it all again, I might have replaced the clear glass in the cabinet doors with textured glass to partially obscure the contents. For more orderly curated kitchen types this would be less of an issue, though ?

Re: kitchen door swing. The previous powder room door had been a folding closet door. This was needed because the adjacent cabinet protruded into the space in the doorway, and the powder room had to be entered at a sideways angle. Not joking ! I had contemplated moving the toilet location, but this was a considerable expense and hassle. If the sink had been moved to the toilet location, I still wouldn't have been able to have the door open INTO the powder room. I believe the powder room had previously been a pantry. There were the notches for hinges for a regular door that opened into the kitchen. The powder room (or pantry) is a tiny 4 x 6' - so a door opening into that space would have been dysfunctional.

[GinaC]

Thank you, nhguy, I will try the Ikea planner. I bought the simple version of the software they use on the Barker website, but I can't figure out how to look at all angles. I'm not even sure the version I bought allows you to.

I put Ikea cabinets in my 1933 apartment renovation in the mid '90's. Perhaps they have increased their quality, but I was not happy with them. They were all particle board and did not hold up. The edges did not wear well at all.

Also I second having the cabinets go to the ceiling. In my last house I had them, and I love them. This house has a completely empty soffit. How do I know it's empty? Because I had to take down the cabinet above the old refrigerator to get my new refrigerator in, and I can see all the way back across the row of the cabinets that are still there. What a total waste of space.

I also second non-clear glass, unless you have special items that you want to show off only in that cabinet. Looking in at food boxes isn't pretty. I plan to commission a stained glass window for my center cabinet, or maybe I'll take a class and learn how to make it myself. I also want to put a stained glass hanging in front of my bathroom window in lieu of replacing the glass with Florentine.

I'm probably going to go Shaker, but the look that I really like is beadboard. I'm not sure I want to spend the money for it.

[Willa]

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/best-fronts-doors-for-ikea-kitchen-cabinets

I have no experience with this but have seen the doors mentioned in many design type publications. The theory seems to be that the structure of Ikea cabinets is good but that the doors and finishes leave some room for improvement.

[Willa]

Also if you look around online, there are kitchen planning documents about the distances that are required for things like being able to open an oven door all the way, with a person in front of that putting a dish IN the oven or the space required around an island or whatever.

There are suggested distances for a work triangle, to make the use of the kitchen the most efficient. Because of the multi-door and window situation here that was impossible, but it makes good sense.

If you look at vintage kitchen design between the 20's - 60's, there were a lot of crafty ideas, like narrow shelving that could hold small bottles on the inside of cabinet doors, built in spice racks, ventilated drawers for onions and potatoes, etc.

The bad, bad kitchen reno here drove me nuts, particularly the not being able to open drawers thing.

If you chanced upon an excellent antique cabinet, two things you need to know are :

- early 20th c. cabinets do not usually have toe kicks, so if this will be your primary work surface this gets a little awkward
- the distance between the upper and lowers is shorter than modern cabinetry - ie using a blender or mixer is impossible

[GinaC]

I've found this book invaluable for knowing the minimum distances between things: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/163 ... UTF8&psc=1