One Room Challenge Reveal – Fall 2018: My Sister’s Charming Kitchen

Valerie Wilcox

Hello there,

And that’s a wrap! My ninth One Room Challenge is complete. I am so excited to share the reveal of my sister’s kitchen with you. It was a labour of love and I am so happy that Arlene is so happy with the end result. If she didn’t live an hour and fifteen minutes away, I would be over there every day for dinner admiring her kitchen. She is the most talented of chefs as well.

If you are new here, I’m an Interior Decorator located in Milton, ON, just 45 minutes northwest of Toronto. I absolutely love what I do and am so grateful that I get to do this on the daily. Also, to catch up on previous posts regarding this renovation, go here:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5

Let’s see the Before so you can see how far we have come in only a few short weeks. We did end up replacing the terra cotta floor tiles and I’m so glad we did. My sister sourced a very budget friendly large format tile in a neutral colour with minimal pattern.

The large plant which is 25 years old was taking up too much precious storage space. A floor to ceiling pantry is a much better use of space, don’t you think? Having all of your food in one location rather than multiple cabinets is one of the goals when designing kitchens.

The cabinetry is from Ikea but you would never know as we had the uppers spray painted SW Toque White (so Canadian, eh?) – a warm greyish white. We didn’t want anything too stark. So, we took the black cabinet upper doors to Paint it Like New and they did a marvelous job as usual spray painting them. The black finish on the doors (both base cabinets and pantry) is how the Ikea doors come.

We could not get rid of the bulkhead in favour of taller upper doors unfortunately so we painted the bulkhead the same colour (BM Simply White) as the ceiling so that it would disappear.

If you compare both photos, you will notice that we moved the sink and dishwasher a few feet to the left, thereby extending the counter and creating more prep space and more room around the range.

A close up of the beautiful Blanco faucet and sink. This is one of their new faucets and I just love the modern take on a traditional bridge faucet.

A wall of closed cabinetry in a kitchen can look uninteresting so I always find ways to add in some display. (In my own kitchen, I did the same thing as we did here but also added glass front cabinets.) I always think a little natural wood in a kitchen adds warmth and interest. So we opted for the single cherry wood shelf above the sink. I bought the Monet print when we visited Monet’s house in Giverny this past summer. Even though it looks perfect here, I just may steal it back. ?

My sister and her husband  have owned a bike store, Bicycles Plus, in Whitby for around 30 years and as a result they are both avid cyclists. They have even cycled several stages of the Tour de France over the years. There are a few references to their love of cycling in the kitchen: The vintage Tour de France poster that my nephew bought in Paris on our trip this summer; the tea towel that I picked up in Vancouver last week from Rain Goose Textiles and handmade in North Vancouver (my former home); and the black cycling statue on the marble stand from HomeSense , where the majority of accessories in the kitchen are from.

The Ombra range hood from Zephyr adds so much to the kitchen and the black stainless steel finish is perfect.  I now think every kitchen needs a black stainless hood for impact. Yes, we did have to retrofit it because of the pesky bulkhead. It pairs so well with the hardware in the ash grey finish from Top Knobs.

I try to incorporate as many drawers into a kitchen design as possible so on this wall we have 9 drawers. I love the cup pulls from Top Knobs and how the finish recedes into the black base cabinetry. Again, this wall would be lacking if we didn’t add this open cabinet at the end. My sister was a bit skeptical but when I showed her an inspiration image (Suzanne Dimma’s former kitchen which I linked to in a previous post) she was sold. In design, displaying objets is always a good idea. Notice how we ran the tile around the door for a seamless look.

I already had this Farrow and Ball wallpaper and it’s a pattern that I have always loved and luckily my sister did as well. It just looks perfect here.

At first we thought the light fixture was a tad too large but my feeling about lighting is to err on the side of the lighting being too large rather than not large enough. We both think it is the perfect size and the size down would have been too small.

Fiori Oakville is my go to florist and all the flowers and greenery were provided by them. They add so much life to any space.

At the outset of designing this kitchen, I thought that blue linen drapes on the patio door would be the perfect hit of colour and would work nicely with the black and white colour scheme. The drapes are from my go to online resource, Tonic Living.

 

Another Before photo so you can appreciate the After even more. Goodbye dated cabinet doors, green laminate counters and fruit backsplash.

 This is an overview of the kitchen. Here you can see the trim from Metrie which mirrors the trim in the rest of their home. Simple and classic. We also changed the very large, protruding refrigerator in favour of a more sleek, counter depth one. The new kitchen feels so fresh and bright and spacious. The former kitchen was just sad and now you can’t help but feel happy in the new kitchen.

All photos by Valerie Wilcox except the close up of drapes and art

So what do you think? Quite the transformation. My sister and her husband are so happy. Both her kids are away at university so they will have to wait to see it. Here are her thoughts that she sent me: “I have been wanting a kitchen like this for many years so when Vanessa said she would like to complete my kitchen for the fall ORC I knew it would get done and get done beautifully. I am over the moon with the end result of the renovation.  I always wanted a white kitchen but when Van suggested a black and white one I thought that’s a bit different so I said yes and we are now loving the two tone cabinets. It has so much character and I now think a totally white kitchen would have been very boring. Love the deep sinks and the faucet. Love the big floor tiles and how it makes the kitchen appear larger. Love the reflective quality of the subway tiles. Love the new appliances and the hood and all the new lighting. Love the little bit of open shelving. Love the extra counter space and extra cabinets, especially the tall pantries. I now have a place for everything. The many weeks without a kitchen was well worth it. It was finished on time as the contractors made sure they met the deadline. Going to really enjoy cooking and baking in my new kitchen.”

Sources:

Zephyr: Black stainless steel range hood

Blanco: Sink and faucet

Top Knobs: knobs, pulls, cup pulls

Metrie: casing and baseboards

Kitchen Aid: Refrigerator and range

HomeSense: Cuisinart pot on range, area rug, striped tea towel, white bowl on table, copper utensil holder, black cycling statue, white pitchers, copper mules, white mugs, white teapot, white bowl on shelf, some of the cookbooks

 Paint it Like New: spray painting of uppers, light valences

Fiori Oakville: Flowers and succulents

Tonic Living: Drapery

Thank you to the brands that partnered with me on this project. My sister and I truly appreciate you! Thanks to Linda from Calling it Home who is the visionary behind the ORC and works behind the scenes so that all of you can be inspired by the transformed spaces. Thank you to my baby sister who trusted me with this project and let me have free reign with the design. She now knows all the millions of details that go into a renovation project and said she couldn’t have done this without me/a designer. And thank you for following along. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. And I know many people don’t read blogs any more or leave comments but I would so appreciate it if you left your thoughts and if you participated in the ORC as well, I would love to see your reveal.

Be sure to check out the featured designers here and the guest participants here. I have seen a few reveals so far and they are pretty amazing so be sure to follow the #oneroomchallenge and #bhgorc hashtags on Instagram. Very inspiring!

Check out my former One Room Challenge Reveals here:

Prettying Up a Builder Kitchen (former home)  – Fall 2014

Teen Daughter’s Bathroom (former home) – Spring 2015

My Parisian Bedroom (former home) – Fall 2015

Teen Daughter’s Bedroom (former home) – Spring 2016

My Charming Kitchen – Fall 2016

My Functional and Pretty Office – Spring 2017

A Multi Purpose Basement – Fall 2017

A Teen Girl’s Bathroom – Spring 2018

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Happy designing and decorating,