It’s a very exciting time at the old farm… our 100 year old farmhouse is getting a new kitchen!! Its been a quiet several months here on the blog, but I decided it was time to come back with a kitchen renovation. I will be sharing our English Country Inspired Kitchen Renovation over the next several weeks, and jumping in (2 weeks late) as a guest participant for the One Room Challenge. This is not my first time signing up for the challenge- you can see the other kitchen we renovated here, and the bedroom we did for our boys here.
When we moved to the farm 2 years ago, we started out by cleaning everything, painting the cabinets and building a freestanding open cabinet base topped with a butcher block counter top.
Here is where the kitchen started:
And here it is after it’s facelift:
Fast forward about a year and a half or so, and picture an incredibly pregnant me- ready to give birth to our 5th baby! 6 weeks before my due date we decided to put in a new floating floor (anything would be better than our stained cafeteria floors!) and tear out the kitchen cabinets.
In some regards it was the worst kitchen reno we have done to date. Which is saying a lot considering the small number of cabinets. Two of them had cinderblock half walls built into them, and the subfloor is solid cement which made moving the plumbing a huge pain. The floor was a full step down from the rest of the room- camouflaged by an awkward fridge cabinet and sloped ramp on the opposite side of the penenisula.
These are not exactly the things you want to find when 8 months pregnant. But my husband worked through the challenges and did a lot of problem solving. We poured self levelling concrete and then had to create a very gradual slope within the floor, which got covered by the floating laminate. In a perfect world we would have laid new subfloor, but we don’t know what our longterm plan is for this home- so operation “make it better” ensued. Nothing will ever be “perfect” in an old hand built home- it will most definitely always be “quirfect”. We got everything to a functioning place before baby arrived, and now that he’s 6 months old and flower season is nearly behind me, its time to finish things off.
If you follow me on instagram you will have seen bits and pieces of the kitchen reno shared there.(I may even have a highlight bubble) But, I have not shared about it at all on the blog- so time to get you up to speed!
This is a full kitchen renovation, but we had a tight budget and timeline to work within.
We did decide to adjust the layout, which has made the kitchen much more functional. I knew we could make it much better so we moved the fridge, sink and stove. It gave us a better flow, and also much more counter space which I love!
The whole main living area needed new flooring, and we went with a cheap and cheerful upgrade. We chose a floating laminate in hickory, and it was $1.73/sf. A screaming deal- and just what we needed for a rather unlevel old farmhouse floor. Some of the projects we tackled in our 5 week reno prior to baby include:
- demoing the old cabinets and cinderblock (?!!) walls between them
- levelling the kitchen floor with self levelling concrete
- installing new base cabinets (we went with the premade instock cabinets from home depot. They were in stock which was a huge factor when choosing them. We have done ikea kitchens a few times, but we A)live on an island with no ikea and B)most of the cabinets we wanted were back ordered)
- laying new laminate throughout the kitchen/dining/living room and hallway (about 700sf)
- installed new counter tops/sink etc.
We got all of the tools put away and the kitchen functional with a week to spare before my due date so we could “chill.” Baby was 10 days over due and is pure magic.
Our kitchen has sat in desperate need of finishing for about 6 months which brings us to now! It’s time to add all of the finishing touches to our kitchen and so I decided to jump in on the One Room Challenge.
Here is a little look at where things are as of this week, after priming the ceiling, painting around the windows and installing pot lights:
Over the next few weeks we will be adding some custom touches to these stock cabinets, finishing the backsplash, building in the fridge, customizing the island, and I will also be sharing some of my favorite ways to save money on a kitchen reno. As you can see our home has some original stone work and a very “english country” vibe, so that is the inspiration behind this kitchen. We have sheep, and rolling hills, so it very much feels as though we are set amidst the english countryside.
I hope you enjoy the process and all the diys that will get our English country inspired kitchen complete!
-Miss Ash
Check out more projects from the One Room Challenge Here
Wow, this is fabulous! I love the stone on the walls.
Thank you Kylie!