House Voyeur: Leah S.' Incredible Remodeled Kitchen

I'm still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor after seeing photos of the newly remodeled kitchen in More Ways to Waste Time reader Leah S.' 1920s-era Colonial Revival home in Philadelphia. (Leah also has a great blog of her own called House Obsession.)

Leah's new kitchen is exactly how I'd like our own kitchen to look when we eventually re-do it: Perfectly balanced between a charming vintage look that honors and blends with the architecture of her older home, but with a fresh, modern outlook that gives it tons of energy and attitude. (Honestly, if I had a kitchen like this, I might actually cook something once in awhile.)

Here, Leah describes the process of taking her kitchen from atrocious to awesome:

"When I bought my house in March, the kitchen was a complete mess. One of the big reasons for buying this house was that there were so many design projects I could do myself -- I specifically did NOT want a house that had already been renovated by someone else. So I was excited to design my new kitchen from the ground up, and started work on it right after I moved in.

My original intent was to keep the old cabinets and paint them. But after lots of consideration, I decided they weren't going to be functional for me -- and therefore weren't worth keeping. (The top cabinets were only about 10 inches deep, and the drawers were small and shallow. Plus, they were absolutely DISGUSTING! I never even bothered unpacking any dishes or food because the cabinets were so gross.)

Over the years, I'd collected images of kitchens I liked, and after looking through them I realized there were a few commonalities: 1) White cabinetry 2) A mix of vintage and modern style 3) A feeling of openness and 4) Open shelving.

I hired a contractor to handle the major construction, but did all the painting and detail work myself. This photo was taken after our first day of demolition.

The hardest part of the process was gathering all the pieces of the puzzle and having them arrive in time. I bought my sink for $75 on craigslist, from a guy who had it sitting in his backyard. When the installers were putting the sink in, they didn't realize the drainboards were deeper in the center than on the sides. So they had to take the sink back off and grind down the marble to make it sit flush with the countertop. The other funny thing is that at least three different workers asked where my 'new' sink was. I had to keep explaining that this was my new sink! The Fado pendant lights are from IKEA.

It took almost two months to have a fully functioning kitchen again. In the interim, I set up my fridge in the living room and my microwave and coffeemaker in the dining room. I also ate a lot of takeout! Probably the hardest thing was not having a proper sink or dishwasher -- I had dirty dishes sitting in random places all around the house.

The thing I stressed over the most was the layout and details of the cabinetry. I definitely wanted white, but I didn't like the look of Thermofoil (which is the cheapest option and seems to be the predominant thing out there for people who like white kitchens). So after some digging, I learned that almost every cabinet style could be ordered in a white-painted version for a slight upcharge. I chose Lowe's Diamond cabinets in Wittenburg Maple, and finished them with Lansa drawer pulls and Exakt knobs from IKEA.

I also knew that I didn't want much top cabinetry, because I wanted to keep the kitchen really open. So I thought hard about the functionality of each component that I put in. The slide-in gas range and the SpeedClean dishwasher are both from Fridgidaire, the Luftig hood is from IKEA, and the refrigerator is Fisher & Paykel's EZKleen stainless model. I opted for classic white subway tile set in a running bond pattern, and white carrera marble countertops.

In the end, I did have to compromise a bit on how much open shelving I was able to install, because I realized I just didn't have the space. (I had originally dreamed of doing a whole wall of open shelves like this.) The stainless steel shelves and other storage components I used are from IKEA's Grundtal series.

But I LOVE the finished product, which is almost exactly how I'd pictured it. I didn't want my house to feel like it came from a specific time period, and I incorporated as much vintage as possible in the kitchen while still trying to keep it modern. I painted the walls with Lowe's Valspar Silver Leaf and the trim with Valspar Du Jour. The 'recipe wall' was done with Rust-oleum's chalkboard paint. I refinished the original pine floors with Medium sheen Waterlox tung oil.

Overall, I'm thrilled with my new kitchen and extremely glad to have my fridge out of the living room!"

Thank you so much for sharing your amazing space with us, Leah! This is totally going in my own inspiration file. (By the way, these gorgeous "after" kitchen photos are by Leah's boyfriend, photographer Nick Steever.)

P.S. Want to see more? Click here for a peek inside other readers' homes.

P.P.S. Stay tuned over the next several days, since I have two more mindblowing House Voyeur tours in the works. I can't wait to share them with you!

House Voyeur: Jen's New Kitchen

Some of us who've been homeowners for a few years -- and who may even have a remodeling project or two under our belts -- are still a bit daunted by the Mother of All Home-Improvement Projects: The Major Kitchen Remodel.

Not so Jen Garcia of Huntington Beach, California. After purchasing her first home last October at the tender age of 26, Jen barely waited until the ink was dry on the closing papers before completely gutting her new condo's bland, timeworn kitchen, below. (Actually, Jen made her boyfriend do the gutting -- but you get the idea.)

Here, Jen shares the story of the makeover:

"This was the first place I ever remodeled. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I did some research, tried my best to do things in the correct order, and made a few mistakes along the way. Still, I'm thrilled with the way everything turned out.

The look I was going for is what I like to call 'contemporary/cozy.' I love clean, straight lines, no clutter, and sophisticated design. But my main concern was to have a place that's comfortable and relaxing while still keeping a contemporary feel. I definitely think I accomplished that.

My favorite thing about the kitchen is the 'brick' backsplash, which is actually made from granite. When I was choosing my granite countertop, I picked another piece of granite and had the stoneyard cut it into an uneven brick design and lay out the pieces on 12-inch-square mesh for installation. I think it completely makes the kitchen.

The other thing I'm thrilled about is the range hood (a Broan Rangemaster 30-Inch in stainless steel). I didn't even know what those things were called before I had to buy one. I looked through magazines and other kitchen resources, saw one similar to this, and was on my way to finding an affordable one of my own.

Other resources:

* Kenmore Stainless Steel 30-inch Freestanding Gas Range

* Pergo laminate flooring (I would have loved wood, but I have to say that with all of the remodeling I did, the Pergo held up amazingly well. Wood would've been thrashed.)

* Kenmore Side-by-Side Stainless Steel Refrigerator

* Avanti EWC28 28-Bottle Wine Cooler With Lock

* Kenmore Elite Stainless Steel 24-Inch Built-In Dishwasher

* The cabinet hardware was purchased on sale from Home Depot. A ten-pack of handles for $20! That was the best deal I found.

* The mocha-beige paint is from Dunn-Edwards, which some friends of mine had used. They had a little sample of it left, but no name. I took it to the paint store and had them color-match it for me."

Thanks so much for sharing your kitchen remodel with us, Jen!

Want to share your own home -- or simply show off a room or a project you're proud of? Please let me know!

Good Reads: "Green Envy"

There's a fascinating opinion piece on "green" design in this week's (normally not-very-noteworthy) San Francisco Chronicle Magazine.

In it, local author and architectural preservationist Jane Powell makes a well-reasoned argument that the current green-house movement is actually doing more environmental harm than good:

Gutting or demolishing small, existing structures to make way for new, supposedly eco-friendly features or larger buildings (even green ones) is wasteful and hypocritical, Powell says. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs contain toxic mercury and do little to lessen the environmental impact of energy production. Those new energy-efficient windows will need to be replaced every ten to 20 years, meaning that the both the original old-growth wood windows and their petroleum-based substitutes will wind up choking landfills.

Powell doesn't provide easy answers to the dilemma, but she does raise some tough questions.

Read the article here.

(Illustration by Craig Larotonda/Revelation Studios.)