A new serie on my blog and time for part 2! 2,5 years of renovating means we are learning a lot and this also means we would’ve done some things differently with the knowledge we have now. First I wrote about our livingroom (read HERE) and today it’s time to discuss our kitchen. And while this is our favorite renovation project, there are some things I wouldn’t do again. Let’s go!
I am pretty sure I would’ve picked a different kitchen this time. Still an IKEA one, because they sell beautiful sturdy kitchens for a great price. Probably still a kitchen with drawers like we have now because I find them very practical. I just don’t always love the stainless steel so much, I would’ve gone for all-white now. Not a big regret, just a changing of style 2 years later.
But what I do feel is such a shame is that we chose a cheap countertop. Creating the countertop ourselves was about 4 times as cheap as getting it custom made, but I would’ve invested the money now. We have 2 seams and I think it’s just such a waste of our nice kitchen. I can see us buying a new countertop in time, to improve the kitchen even more. We would love a marble top, dark wood or white again. So if you want my advice: don’t save money on your counter top. I know a renovation can be costly enough on its own, but some items are simply expensive and if you use them everyday, worth the money.
Funny detail: this area in real life never bugs me, but it does every time I see it through my camera. We chose a small hanging cabinet that hides our extractor, an idea I still really like. But when I see it on photos, I feel the cabinet is way too small for this area. If I could do it again (and we might in the future) I would probably buy new closets that would fill the entire wall up til the ceiling. I think that is going to look even better. This would create a lot more storage so we might do this in the future.
Another funny detail: originally our house didn’t have a corner kitchen. The door you see on the left is not original, the previous owners added that. The original door goes through the hallway, like in a lot of houses built around 1930. So when we removed the old kitchen (see blogpost on how it used to be HERE) we came across the old door and we doubted to restore the original layout. My husband preferred this, but I wasn’t sure. I like the idea of keeping it original, but it would mean our kitchen would be a lot smaller. So in the end, that was the reason to go ahead with our original plan. Until this day I am still very happy with this decision, because we have plenty of room in our kitchen now, which would’ve been a problem then. So yes, some decisions are for the good :)
Not so long ago we decided to paint the ceiling a dark green color to make our kitchen more cosy. Still very happy with it! It adds a lot of character to the room and I feel the brick wall pops out even more.
Thank you for reading and this serie regarding our renovation will be continued with a new room in the house :)
