Hello friends! Today is an exciting day for me in terms of sharing our beach house project. Today I finally get to share with you our finished kitchen!
The beach house kitchen turned out exactly as we’d planned and is one of our favorite rooms in the house. It’s technically been done for a while because after we got a great deal on cabinets we flew through the project. Everything came together so easily.
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The Kitchen Layout
This is the location of the kitchen but that is the only thing that is the same. Of course the big change is the wall that we removed between the kitchen and the living area. Even though the footprint of the kitchen didn’t change, it just looks and feels so much more spacious.
The sink was on the back wall where the stove is now. We closed in that window and ran the kitchen in an “L shape along that wall and along the outside wall. We changed the window to a shorter one so that the cabinets could run underneath.
While and island would have been our first choice, by creating a peninsula between the kitchen and living area, we gained a lot of additional storage and counter space. It also connects the two spaces so much better.
We did have to get a little creative with cabinets on the peninsula. Where our original planned called for standard base cabinets all the way around, when we started marking in where the cabinets were going to go, we realized it would be super tight and only have space for one person in the kitchen.
We changed the peninsula cabinets to uppers that are half as deep, built a base so they would have the same kickplate and the end result was perfect.
The Kitchen Design
I’ve been pretty open about the fact that the backsplash tile set the stage for everything else in the house. I fell in love with it early on and i’m still in love with it.
We had originally planned to run the tile all the way around the kitchen like a backsplash but decided instead to run it counter to ceiling behind the stove instead. What was originally a money saving decision actually ended up being the better design decision. We went wider with the backsplash on purpose so it had more impact and it’s now the focal point when you walk in the front door. It draws your eye in and is really beautiful.
The rest of the walls in the kitchen are white shiplap like the rest of the house. It was a great choice and further lets the tile stand out.
Because the kitchen is small, we made the daring decision to do open shelves instead of upper cabinets. I didn’t want the kitchen to feel closed in or too heavy with cabinets everywhere.
A year later, I’m not at all disappointed that we did open shelves. The white oak shelves we made ourselves are beautiful and the modern metal brackets are clean and simple.
The cabinets we painted ourselves in a blue that we matched to the tile. My original vision was a true navy but this blue is a little softer and we really love it. It’s bright and bold and balances so well with the white everywhere else.
For the counters, we went with butcher block. It was super affordable and easy to work with, but with so many painted surfaces we also felt the wood would help warm things up a bit. We didn’t stain them so they’d stay lighter but we did oil them well.
The lighting over the peninsula were pendants B picked up on his own. They may not have been what I would have picked but they work really well. The bubbled glass is pretty and the black metal ties in with some of the other black metal but they don’t distract from the rest of the kitchen.
And speaking of this area, we wrapped this new, large opening between the living area and the kitchen with rough sawn oak to make it look more like old beams rather than a polished framed opening. It adds more warmth and texture to contrast all the white and painted surfaces.
The Other Side
Opposite the main kitchen area is what we are calling our dining area but would actually be better described as the eat-in-kitchen. It’s on this side where our frig is and also where we relocated the old hutch that was in the original kitchen when we bought the house.
I plan to dive deep into the details on this side of the kitchen at a later time, but it wouldn’t make sense if I didn’t at least mention it here today.
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Our kitchen isn’t glamorous, it didn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars but it looks great and is perfect for our little beach cottage. You can get all the details and resources below. If you have other questions, please let me know!
Resources:
Shiplap Paint color: Sherwin Williams Extra White
Trim Color: Sherwin Williams Front Porch
Tile for Backsplash: Bedrosians Azul
Cabinet Paint Color: Sherwin Williams Sea Creature
Countertops: Home Depot
Gold Hardware: Menards
Cabinets: Home Depot
Oak Shelves: DIY
Shelf Brackets: Amazon
Faucet: Lowes
Vent Hood: Wayfair
Dinnerware: Vintage Willow from a public sale
Woven Glasses: Pottery Barn
Baskets: Thrifted
Utensil Crock: Thrifted
Blue Tumblers: Wal Mart, Similar
Cafe Curtains: DIY from cloth napkins via Amazon
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