Modern California Bungalow Kitchen: Finally finished!
Okay, I might be using "finished" a little liberally—we're still not FKB ready and have a bunch of loose ends to finish up–but for all practical purposes, the remodel of the kitchen in our 1915 Arts and Crafts bungalow in Oakland, California is finally finished! Photos and details below. This was a partial DIY remodel, but we also relied on lots of wonderful tradespeople over the course of the project. I'm including the names of SF Bay Area contractors and vendors we especially enjoyed working with, since I found this information super useful when others posted it. If anyone is local and wants more info, just shoot me an email.
Cabinets: Custom, mix of flush inset and frameless (Martin Bernardo of California Kitchens & Furniture in Redwood City)
Colors: Benjamin Moore Aura in Acadia White (trim and inset cabinets), Sea Haze (frameless cabinets), and Wales Green (walls)—cabinets/trim are satin finish and walls are eggshell
Hardware (frameless): Rejuvenation Mission D pulls in polished nickel
Hardware (inset): 2" ball-tip hinges in polished nickel from Horton Brasses, small latches and Mission D pulls in polished nickel from Rejuvenation Hardware, and large bin pulls in polished nickel from Belmont Hardware in Berkeley.
Lights: Schoolhouse Electric Newbury (ceiling) and Union (over table) in antique black and Rejuvenation Skidmore (over sink) in polished nickel, all with shades from Schoolhouse
Counters: Barroca soapstone (M. Teixeira in SF) and beech butcher block (IKEA Numerar finished with low-VOC Waterlox)
Backsplash: Lanka Aquarello subway tile in frost with black 1/4" pencil liner (Tileshop in Berkeley and Art Tile in Oakland)
Shelves: IKEA Ekby brackets with douglas fir steps trimmed to fit (very creative thinking by Piedmont Lumber in Oakland!)
Flooring: Marmoleum Click tile in Eternity, Silver Shadow, and Volcanic Ash (Anderson Carpet & Linoleum in Oakland)
Range: O'Keefe and Merritt High-Vue 535 (existing)
Dishwasher: Miele Inspira G2142SCWH (Universal AKB in LA)
Hood: 36" Kobe RA094 (also Universal)
Sink: Kohler Cape Dory in white (plumbed by Ed at Bonafide Plumbing in Alameda—highly recommend!)
Faucet: Chicago Faucets 540 (FaucetDirect.com in Chico)
Refrigerator: Kenmore/Whirlpool model circa 1996 (existing, of course!)—will eventually be replaced with 36" counter-depth model
Island is temporary from the old kitchen, but is IKEA's Bekvam kitchen cart (love this; wish they made a bigger table version!) We will be replacing it with a 2' x 4' (or thereabouts) work table, hopefully with the same basic design. Table/shelves/shoe rack are also temporary while we figure out what to do there; no clue where they're from.
We were working with a huge-to-us-but-not-to-contractors budget of $30K that had to cover some significant structural work (most systems had not been touched since 1940 or before), so we had to make some tradeoffs along the way to keep costs in check. We managed to come in just under budget–woohoo!
While this remodel only took about three weeks of actual contractor work days (with some trades overlapping), it dragged out over several months, largely because by the end, we got DIY renovation fatigue and slowed to a snail's pace. The biggest delay was that we seriously underestimated how long the DIY tasks (painting, flooring, range hood + venting, sink install, tiling, a few others) would take us, since we were primarily just working weekends and learning on the fly. (This is also why we still have no floor thresholds and you shouldn't look too closely at the paint, which still needs touch ups in many spots...)
Our goals:
- Add more contiguous and useful counter space
- Add a dishwasher and ventilation for the stove
- Reconnect kitchen with rest of house as far as light/flow—1939 remodel had cut off visual/physical connection between backyard and living areas
- Create better flow in the kitchen and connect the breakfast room to the main kitchen, but preserve its separate function
- Create a designated space for shoes, coats, and muddy dogs
- Return the kitchen to an aesthetic more appropriate to the age of the house (a traditional and relatively well-preserved 1915 California Arts and Crafts bungalow)
- Allow swinging door to swing into the kitchen, which it hadn't been able to do in decades
What we did:
- Removed clay chimney flue (original to house and serving the stove, water heater, and furnace; latter two had to be moved or replaced as part of the project to meet current code)
- Removed partition wall added in 1939 remodel
- Removed moulding added in 1939 remodel and replaced with moulding matched to original
- Removed ceramic tile floor; replaced with Marmoleum Click tile floating floor to lower overall floor height while preserving fir subfloor
- Repaired plaster, leveled ceiling, rehabbed windows, and replaced all cabinetry and fixtures
Lots more to say on all of this so I'll put that into a separate reply to keep it simple. But here's the important stuff: the pics!
The old kitchen (second kitchen for our old house, last renovated in 1939 with a 2007 seller facelift):
The new kitchen:
Comments (55)
honorbiltkit
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