After months of hard work and utter madness, the kitchen remodel finally finished at the end of November. And after the craziness of the holidays and the bustling new year, I finally have time to talk about it. When we moved in, the kitchen was the eyesore of the house, which is saying a lot since the colors of the various other rooms in our home ranged from sunshine yellow, to cranberry red, to tan, and neon sky blue (yes, there was a loooot of painting involved in the move-in process). The kitchen was a dated mint green, and that and the almond cabinets with golden oak trim, formica everything, linoleum floors, and appliances from 1970, gave it a really antique feel (and not in the good way). The electric stovetop jutted out into the middle of the room awkwardly, and that along with an archway separated the kitchen from an extremely tiny breakfast nook and sliding glass door at the end of the room. The breakfast nook was so small, though, that a little table with two chairs wouldn’t leave much room for whoever was walking by to use the sliding glass door, and it just added more foot traffic to the cooking area.
After |
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Before |

We originally had four doors going in and out of the house, and by that I mean doors that went to the outside of the home. Two of of those were located in the kitchen (weird). One opens onto the driveway area, and the big sliding glass door opened onto the deck. And there’s an additional 3 doors in the kitchen that go to the bathroom, dining room, and basement, so there were just waaaay too many doors going on. Jeremy’s office (the room next door to the kitchen) also has a door that opens onto the deck, so having the giant one in the kitchen was pointless especially since it rendered the breakfast nook useless, and there is already a dining room in the house, hence no real need for an extremely tiny breakfast nook. We had the sliding glass door taken out to minimize foot traffic and that’s where the new wall, window, and vintage stove went. And all the other doors are located on the opposite end of the kitchen from the stove, so it keeps all the foot traffic in one spot away from the central cooking area.

Once we started tearing out the arch that separated the tiny breakfast nook from the kitchen, we noticed that there was a small support beam at the very top of it. We didn’t just want the white drywall around the beam, and the beam itself was too small to look like much of anything if we left it raw (it’s only 2 inches tall), so Jeremy made a reclaimed wood beam box cover to put over it, and now it looks like a nice big rustic exposed beam.
All the old appliances (from the 1970’s) were electric so we had a new gas line put in from the existing one for the gas furnace in the basement. The gas guy was awesome, and he even took the old hot tub water heater that was on the side of the house (the hot tub had been gone for years but the water pump/heater for it remained behind) since he had a use for it, and installed a gas line going to the deck in exchange, hurray! The flooring was originally sheet linoleum, my husband tore that out and we found asbestos vinyl underneath. Everyone we asked about it said the best thing to do was to just leave it undisturbed and put the new flooring over it, so that’s what we did and the new white oak hardwoods were just installed on top of it, leaving the kitchen floor about 1 inch higher than the rest of the house.
To me, the key item that ties the whole kitchen together is the vintage range. I knew I wanted a vintage gas range from the beginning and I wanted it to be the focal point of the kitchen when you walked in. The only thing is that there’s a big market for vintage stove collectors, and a whoooole lot of them are in Portland, which makes them cost as much as a new gas range. So Jeremy and I scoured craigslist for weeks, and after a little over a month he found the listing for our current gas range for only $375, which was a steal for a vintage range of that size and in that good of condition. It’s a vintage 40″ Roper 6 burner gas range from the 1950’s, the left side is a broiler and the right side is an oven. The hardest part was carrying it out of the tiny bungalow it was currently residing in and into my dad’s truck (looking back I should have hired a mover to help lift it, but hindsight is 20/20, right guys?), then out of the truck and into our garage. I love that the stove brings a vintage feel to the farmhouse-style kitchen, but it is in such good condition that it still has that sleek polished look to it. I also like to think about all the food that’s been prepared on it over the years, and hope that all the good food karma carries into what I cook on it, too.
The kitchen sink was probably the single most expensive item, aside from the refrigerator. It’s a hammered copper farmhouse sink and we got it from Home Depot.We got our new refrigerator and dishwasher from Sears Outlet to save money (see kitchen sink), they were both about half as much as their brand new counterparts. The dishwasher was a floor model but in great condition, and the refrigerator has a couple scratches on the side and front that I don’t mind.
We sourced the reclaimed wood for the countertops and shelves from Salvage Works(a reclaimed lumber yard here in Portland) and the ReBuilding Center. I really wanted something natural and repurposed for the countertops, and I wanted to be able to shoot on it, so wood was the perfect choice. Jeremy built them himself, after a little bit of trial and error, and they came out beautifully. All the plants are from Portland Nursery, they have an amazing indoor plant greenhouse. I stuck with moss, ferns, leafy vines, and air plants since they do well with indirect light and provide lots of green foliage. They also help negate the negative affect on home air quality that gas ranges tend to have.
We used a trunk from a dead birch tree in our yard for the hanging rack above the stove and I plastered the walls myself. Most of the copper cookware throughout the kitchen isFalk, and the rest of the items out on display are vintage cookware items I’ve collected over the years to use as props in my food photography. The oil painting of Cannon Beach here in Oregon was an antique shop find, too.

It was a long, loooooong process, not improved much by the terrible contractor and cabinet makers we ended up with. Jeremy and I started taking the cabinets and countertops out in August, and the kitchen wasn’t done until the last weekend of November. I’m going to take a moment to talk about the things that went wrong, just because I feel like I learned a lot about red flags and what you should and should not deal with during this process, and I feel like it’s important to stand up for what you want when a stranger is working on your home. Everything seemed fine at first, but I started noticing that after I’d told our contractor things, he’d come back asking the same questions again a week or two later, apparently not keeping track of anything I was saying. Jeremy completely demo-ed the kitchen (i.e. tore out all the cabinets, area of drywall, old appliances, and the archway) himself so we could save some money on paying someone else to do it, we had new white oak hardwood floors installed about a week after that, and the sliding glass door had been removed and the new wall and window had been installed about a week after that. The next week, the cabinets were supposed to be installed. The day of, our contractor called the cabinet makers to find out when they were coming, only to discover that they hadn’t even started building them yet. Yep, there wasn’t even a nail in a piece of wood on them. So three weeks later, (meaning three extra weeks with no kitchen at all), the cabinets were finally installed.

Then we came to find that the drawers built next to the stove actually open into the stove, (meaning you can’t actually pull them open), even though we had our contractor and the cabinet maker come measure the range we had bought. So they did a shoddy patch job to make the drawer fit, and it still kind of bugs me when I look at it. If I could go back I would have had them use wood putty and sand it down to make the front facade smooth instead of leaving the wood joint areas near the stove visible through the paint, but that wasn’t the biggest problem anymore. Turns out the large cabinet housing meant for the refrigerator was too small. We discovered this when the fridge was delivered and it wouldn’t fit. I’d sent our contractor a link to the the refrigerator with all the specs listed after we bought it, but apparently he didn’t pass on the information correctly to the cabinet makers. At this point we’d already had painters come out and paint all the cabinets (the cabinet makers we used don’t paint them, they just build and install them. I’d definitely recommend only using cabinet makers that also paint them, just to avoid having to coordinate between two companies like this when something gets f’d up), so not only did we have to wait for another cabinet to be built before we could put the new refrigerator in the kitchen, we also had to reschedule with the painters to come back and paint the new one, and that pushed it out another three weeks. And on top of all this, the cabinet makers tried to get us to pay for the cabinet painters to come back a second time!! I don’t know if the urge to kill something had ever been that strong and deep in my soul, but I made it clear that that was not happening, and they could work out who was paying for it between them and my contractor.
Soooooo finally the cabinet stuff was done and we had the hardwood flooring people come back to put a final coat of finish on it to fix any scuffs that might have occurred during installation. Except they didn’t clean the floor off beforehand, so you can see little bits of dust and specks and stuff if you look at the floor with the light hitting it from an angle, but at that point I just wanted everyone out of our house so I didn’t say anything. I vacuumed before they came (even though there was no instruction from them on how to prepare the floor), but assumed they had special equipment they used to get all the dust and specs off the floor (I imagined something like a mega swiffer) before they put the paint down. Turns out no. I still am pretty unhappy with the hardwoods and will probably have them redone in a few years (I wanted reclaimed wood grey…and to them that translated as off-white laminate-looking flooring). Our contractor really pushed using his hardwood flooring guys, but if I could go back I would have picked a different flooring company after the first discussion where I had an inkling that they had very limited and basic abilities in the type and look of wood they could install. Always go with your gut!

I also didn’t ask for any price to be taken off of the amount I paid for all the cabinet/contractor work, even though I was left without a kitchen to cook in (and thus a source of income) for an additional two months. I was also supposed to be writing a cookbook at that time, and that delayed everything, too. I should also mention that our contractor was remodeling his own kitchen at the same time, which I think is why everything took longer for us since we were always his lowest priority over his own home. Going back, I would ask for a price reduction given all the, pardon my French, bullshit that we had to deal with during the remodel process, and that it actually resulted in lost income for me. I’d also recommend using smaller contractors who only do one project at a time, since it keeps mistakes and disorganization at bay.
So, that’s my spiel about the do’s and don’ts of the remodeling process. I am so, so incredibly happy with my kitchen and love working in it every day. I think that the amount of work we put into it definitely makes me appreciate it even more than if we’d hired someone to build the countertops or plaster the walls or do the demo, and I definitely learned a lot about dealing with contractors and the like. There were times during this process that I wondered if it would ever actually be done and if it would ever be worth all the stress and time and money, and I think a lot of people feel that kind of anxiety and despair when a part of their home is being torn apart, but it did work out, and it was really worth it for us. Plus we found a lot of fun things along the way, like an old baby picture that must have fallen behind the old refrigerator from the family that lived there before us, an old back to school Meier & Frank ad from 1972 stuffed into the wall along with the old insulation, the old brick chimney that goes behind the refrigerator where the wood-burning oven used to be back when the house was built in 1937. Breaking down each wall told us a new story about our home, the people who lived there, and its evolution over time. And this was just the first room we’ve remodeled in the house, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the house has in store for us…
Well, despite all the heartache, your kitchen looks absolutely stunning. It feels like the kitchen you and Jeremy would have: inviting, beautiful, connected to nature. I can't wait to come over and see it in person!
Standing up to your sub-contractors was the biggest lesson I learned. It's amazing how easily I was dismissed by sub-contractors just because I was a woman and therefore "didn't understand how things work". This was despite the fact that I was acting as general contractor by handling all of the different subs, and framed in our custom archway (in addition to all the demo and carpentry work I had done to save money). You can't let them push you around! It's your home and you get to make the calls. We hire professionals because we assume that they will do the job better than we can, and so if they don't measure up to our standards, then they clearly aren't doing their job.
That being said, I absolutely love the process of restoring our house. It's stood untouched for 75 years, and moving room by room let's us shape the history of the house for the next 75 years. I can say this easily now that I have a kitchen again after 6 months without any way to cook 😉
Agree with everything you said.
This is an amazing kitchen and I love that your tastes are so present. Amazing plants, too!
Wow, you really had to deal with a bunch of crap! Despite all of that, your kitchen looks GORGEOUS. Between you and Michelle of Hummingbird High, I think I have my future kitchen all figured out. And props to you for doing a lot of the work yourselves. It's lovely!
Looks so awesome Eva! I can't wait to read your advice later when I have more time as I'm looking into buying a house and eventually doing a kitchen remodel also. I love the wood shelving and sink!
Looks so awesome Eva! I can't wait to read your advice later when I have more time as I'm looking into buying a house and eventually doing a kitchen remodel also. I love the wood shelving and sink!
The way you guys transformed your kitchen is absolutely incredible. I am in love with the re-purposed wood counter tops & shelves that you built, and that vintage range???? Beautiful and SUCH a good buy!!!! I am so inspired! Can I come and share it with you? Please!?
You're kitchen looks great! We're going to be renovating our kitchen this summer and it's helpful to know the whole process.
It's just breathtaking!So,so,so,sooooooooo beautiful I want to scream!I know doing the house(and dealing with contractors) is such a hard work but it does pay off at the end.Stunning!!!
Oh, gosh. So sorry for all the hassle and problems with the contractor — that sounds awful. But oh my goodness, your kitchen. BEYOND dreamy. Thank you so much for sharing your tips and for this gorgeous peek into your lovely space! (And go Jeremy for doing so much of the legwork!!)
ugh, man, i'm sorry you had to go through all that crazy, but wow! the results are stunning. i've loved the peeks from your kitchen lately, and it's so awesome to see the entire thing. (and i absolutely adore your copper cookware, ahh my heart.)
Oh wow, it sounds like you had a bit of a rough time there. But in the end, this kitchen of yours looks so beautiful, so perfect, so… you! I'm guessing it was worth the wait.
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Oh wow.. It sounds very frustrating. But if it makes you feel any better, if you didn't say anything no one would know. It looks beautiful. I have been going through a similar process as I am getting my website redesigned. I made the mistake of paying all the money upfront, and now that she got the money, I feel like she would care less about my project. All initial promises are out the window.
I guess these are great experiences we all need to experience to grow.
Your kitchen looks beautiful Eva. A dream come true for many people… I love how you display your props. It is very inspiring. I hope you will cook and eat in that beautiful space with your loved ones in the many years to come.
Cheers from the Caribbean..
This story is terrifying and totally awesome at the same time. Why does remodeling always have to be so gross? You hear the horror stories and hope something like that is never going to happen to you, but it seems shoddy contractors are just ubiquitous! Yikes. The end result is freaking stunning, though. Holy balls, your kitchen! How is cooking with that range? That oven/broiler situation looks intimidating. The countertops and shelves are beautiful–I could stare at that texture for days! I hope the rest of your remodeling projects progress more smoothly 🙂
I seriously don't know a single thing about remodeling, but myyyy goodness is this one of the most beautiful kitchens I've ever seen!!! I honestly thought the gas range was all brand new and didn't know how you got your hands on it, now I know it was just carefully used. That's so cool 😀 And the sink and um, the counters! But most of all the open feel because that's the one thing I would love someday. My kitchen is way less appealing and much older than your before model (and yours was still really cute I think!) So you can imagine…lol.
Eva, what an amazing transformation, it is gorgeous!!!
And by the way, I really love that stove! 🙂
It all came together beautifully. Your kitchen is a dream.
Beautiful kitchen! Your photos make me want to renovate my own, but your post reminds me that I don't want to go through that headache.
Love your kitchen photos of your remodel. I feel your pain sister! I acted as my own general contractor and finished a 100k addition (bedroom, Bathroom and huge patio with rustic fireplace) on my home, last July.
Learned a lot. Had some great subs and some horrific ones too. The electrician being the worst and telling me he could do my drywall. Costing me double for both. Having to fire him and re hires new subs to fix all the screw ups he did. Not getting a contract from him screwed me too. Another thing I will never do again. Always have a contract and use license subs. Least expensive is not the way to go either.
I love your kitchen by the way!
This is such a nice addition thanks!!!
شات صوتي
كول
عرب كول
شات مغربي
انحراف كام
شات عربي
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غلا الروح
شات الغلا
غلا روحي
شات صوتي
شات الغلا
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شوق كام
شات صوتي شوق
شات صوتي
شات عذاب
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شات كام
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شات صوتي شوق
شات كول
شات صوتي
شات الغلا الرقمي
شات عذاب كول الرقمي
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مدونة غلا الروح
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First let me say, it turned out amazing, just stunning! I know exactly how you feel! I had a restaurant in Hood River many years ago that was an old house we remodeled. The contractors took twice as long as they said it would and tried to charge us for things they didn't even do. There was a lot more than that but I wont go on. It ended beautiful in the end and I had to let go of any frustration I had. Now you can enjoy it : D
This kitchen looks so good! If mine was the same, I'd spend the whole day cooking! haha
This looks beautiful! You did such a lovely job! Beautiful photos!
Saw a photo of your kitchen on Pinterest, and I'm obsessed! This is 99% my dream kitchen! I was sorry to read about all the trouble you had with the contractor, but I'm also grateful for your honesty. Most of the time, such beautiful spaces like this seem overwhelmingly unattainable – thanks for breathing some realism into the process of achieving the "after"! Love your blog!
I am having some serious oven envy over here.
I like a lot white kitchens. They look bigger and clean. You can add some color accents
Hi – I really appreciate all of your insights about your kitchen remodel. We are in the beginging stages of a remodel. One question – You ordered wood cabinets then had them painted. One contractor also mentioned this. Is there a reason you just didn't order white cabinets, rather than the 2 step process?
Thanks so much.
P.S. Love your food and photography. I made your raspberry brown butter cake with goat cheese frosting and it was amazing!
me-ra-vi-glio-sa!
Godddddddddd !
I love this kitchen!
Can you comment on the finish on the counter tops? Wax? Thanks!
I’d love to know too!
WOW! So gorgeous. Can you tell me more about plastering the walls? How hard is it to do it yourself? I’m considering removing the old lath and plaster and/or gypsum board, insulating my walls, and then plastering them in a fresh, natural plaster. Not sure what I’m about to get myself into though…. Also, those countertops are gorgeous!! Did you stain them, or do you just oil them on occasion to keep them fresh?
I had lots of contractor frustrations too – tough when you have a vision. For your floors – look into Rubio Monocoat Fumed. I also wanted floors that looked old and slightly grey and this product got me there. It’s non toxic and fast drying which means you don’t have to vacate the house for a week. It works best on oak, and I saw that’s what you have. A little hand distressing and a coat of this might get you what you want! For another project we renovated a 100 year old carriage house and the Rubio Fumed allowed us to fill in missing pieces and make it look 100 years old. Hope that helps!!
Your honesty about dealing with contractors and subs was so refreshing. Thank you. Your home is beautiful!
I feel transported. Your photographs are stunning, evocative, dream like. I would love to occupy the beautiful homestead!! What vision, grace and peace. Sigh. I would love to renovate our home with even a speck of the magic in yours.
Love Love Love your kitchen. The shelves are so pretty. May I ask what kind of brackets you used?
I loved reading about your kitchen remodel. Our daughter is having an ADU built here in Portland on the back of our property. After lots of preliminary work (as you know) they will start demolishing the old garage next week and then site prep then the actual building will begin. We will moving along at about the same time as your homestead project, which I’m imagining will be beautiful after see what other spaces you’ve worked with. By the way, my daughter is also a trained chef so we both appreciate your recipes and gorgeous food photography. Thank you for the beautiful images and good luck with the homestead!
This post is super helpful, I will be referring back to this often. I want to get a head start on remodeling our kitchen, similar to yours! These tips are great as well! As soon as our dumpster rental arrives we will get started!
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