When Kitchn reader Heejoo renovated his Northeast Seattle home earlier this year, the kitchen was a big part of the makeover. Heejoo added a partial second story in order to expand and update the kitchen with a new formal entry and an L-shaped open floor plan—all designed to be "casual and modern." See what it looks like now:
Heejoo shares the details of this extensive remodel:
We remodeled our galley kitchen into an L-shaped, open floor plan with large island and vaulted ceilings. We extended the kitchen out into the back patio adding approximately 200 sqft to the existing floor plan and used IKEA boxes for cabinets with high gloss IKEA cabinet doors around the perimeter and semi-handmade custom walnut doors on the island. The perimeter cabinets have under cabinet halogen lighting and we installed IKEA door dampers for self-closing.
Since the kitchen is predominantly white, we added a splash of green with our island lights. The island measures 8' x 4' and is large enough for four adults to sit and eat comfortably. We added a prep sink for kids to wash hands at the end of the island, two skylights, a large window with horizontal sliders and a glass french door to create an open and bright space. We also added small windows above the cabinets to gain more light at sunset, and sacrificed taller cabinets for 30" cabinets because of the above cabinet windows.We only have oil and electricity, we kept our existing electric stainless steel appliances which were only about two years old and in good shape. (Before photos show our original white appliances.)
We added slide out recycling, garbage and compost bins near the main sink. The counter tops in the old kitchen were laminate, the new counter tops are Caesarstone quartz. We also replaced our ceramic flooring with hardwood floors, created a counter depth pantry, and added chalk board paint for the kids to get creative in the kitchen.
Thanks, Heejoo!
Related: Kitchen Before & After: Theresa's 11-Day Gut Overhaul
(Images: Heejoo for The Kitchn)
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BEAUTIFUL. I love a white kitchen and the little color and the walnut panels are lovely. Enjoy cooking and living in it.
So beautiful!
I'm finally ready to start interviewing kitchen designers. If my kitchen turns out half as lovely as yours - I'll be a happy girl! Congratulations.
Ooooh. I have that Ikea light too. What did you use to paint the inside? I love the splash of color.
is it just me or are 80%+ of the kitchens lately white? i love a white kitchen, but other colors can be nice too!
I love white kitchens! This is a beautiful remodel!
How I long for a white kitchen! But mine's in the basement so dark colors suit it better. What a great way to take full advantage of the rare natural light that Seattle offers. :)
I like both but I have a feeling that in ten years you'll hate the remodel. It just seems so trendy.
Nice. The reworking of the space is really well done. I hope you are enjoying it!
G O R G E O U S !!
Trendy McTrendsville... I feel like just painting the existing cabinets white and replacing the floor and backsplash would have made more sense and not looked dated in like a year.
That re-do will look dated in a year? what the heck are you guys talking about? Its very modern looking and has a basic color palette. It looks fresh now, it will look fresh in 5 years.
Great job!!!!
I like those simple work stools. Nice choice.
To all the folks who love the white kitchens, have you ever had one? Lord, I never knew how much spattering happens on a daily basis until I lived with white cabinets. It's pretty and all, but I'd need a housekeeper mopping up behind me three times a day.
oh to have a kitchen with such beautifully large windows and glass doors - they add light and beautiful views. wonderful.
We have an island similar to yours, with inset stove rather than sink. Our main sink is right behind, so we considered an additional prep sink to be an unnecessary expense. It would be nice, though, to have one for handwashing separate from food prep. I like how you have utilised both sides of the island for storage - we didn't think of doing that. White cabinets would not be my personal choice, and I wish you could have re-used the old cabinets and flooring, although I realise that's not always possible when you reconfigure the kitchen, and the new wood floors look great. We had to lose lovely granite worktops when we remodelled.
What a huge improvement - & the natural light is fantastic. Those high gloss white cab doors are sharp, & more folks are opting for slab doors over traditional (finally!!). We're working on a modern kitchen makeover for a client who is giving a mid century modern home new life. Looking forward to semihandmade doors for that one!
thanks folks! I heart my kitchen.
Man, that "before" would be an "after" for some of us. The new one has some nice features but the old one is still miles ahead of mine.
I disagree with people who find it "too trendy." My friend's kitchen has a similar look, though with black counters, and it looks great today ... as great as it did when she bought the house 17 years ago. The only trendy element here is the hanging pendant fixtures -- those will be easy to change should the homeowner tire of them, though they sure look cute now.
Very nice! How many new windows did you install? It is so bright and airy! - so bright that I think that the photographer should have used a filter. That said, I love how bright it is.
I have one criticism and this is a criticism of IKEA not your kitchen, I don't like their microwave cabinet - you have this minimal wall of cabinets which draws my eye right to the little cut-out for your microwave. I only criticize because I am debating installing one myself and question it's odd look.
White never goes out of style. You can paint your kitchen and use accessories of any color you want and the cabinets will always match it.
I have white steel cabinets with a dark laminate (IKEA) top. In a few years I'll change the cheap laminate and it will look fresh again.
This is a lovely transformation. For some people beauty and happiness lies in collecting things from dumpsters, not that there is anything wrong with it, but if I can praise your stuff out of the dumpster, why can you not be open minded about my OTC transformation.
Great job Heej. I am so jealous thinking you will be getting up in the morning for the rest of your life to see this beauty.
@Duane Hill: On the microwave cabinet, can you combine the Ikea cabinet with a trim kit from the microwave manufacturer to make it look built-in, instead of having it be a roughly-microwave-sized shelf?
I'm not sure I agree that it looks "odd" as is, but the trim kits do look pretty nice and give a more streamlined look.
@ANGELINETHEBAKER, thanks! I'll look into it.
The 'before' is very similar to my kitchen, in color, style & layout. I'm delighted to see just how lovely this all-white kitchen looks-I'll be decorating mine later this year (just painting walls & refinishing cabinets) so I'm happy to see that if I paint the cabinets white as I plan, it will look great.
Or at least I think so!
Wow, I was gonna say I liked the before photos.. then I saw the after ones.. stunning!
The remodel looks clean and crisp. However, if you are going to the trouble of remodeling the kitchen and investing so much in labor -- I don't know why you'd go on the cheap with the IKEA cabinets. All that particleboard is going to start breaking down in a few years.
Solid wood cabinets are more expensive, but in the long run they hold up better and most of the time you can just replace the doors or resurface them for a new look.
@Particleman, the return of investiment just isn't worth going solid wood over OSB or particleboard.
1. You don't know how long the owner plans to live here. If the owner plans on living there +20 years you may have a point.
2. It is probably cheaper to replace an aged OSB cabinet than it is to professionally refinish a wood cabinet.
3. Upfront costs - the owner probably didn't want to wait around another 10 years to buy cabinets.
I think the remodel looks amazing. I don't know why others would go out of their way to put your work down. It may be a current look (I don't know, not being up-to-date on kitchen trends), but if you happened to want a certain look for your home, why would you change it just because others had the same vision? It's not trendy, it's classic, adaptable and easy to update, as Duane Hill noted. And can it be so awful to know where to clean your kitchen walls and counters? Or had removing stains become trendy and, hence, dated? How does something become tacky just because more homes have it? Did indoor plumbing go out of style once it became mainstream? Please, not everything is about being one step ahead of others.
I'm firmly in the white kitchen camp. I want to be able to see the messes I make rather than have them disguised. I think this remodel is beautiful. I especially love the wood doors on the island.
Particleman, IKEA kitchens have a 25 year warranty.
Obsessed with this! Clean, bright and white! Love the pops of color and chalkboard paint. Exactly what I hope to have some day.
I remodeled my Manhattan galley kitchen a year ago with Ikea cabinets and CANNOT be happier. The quality is great, and details like quiet-closing doors and drawers don't always come with the high end stuff.
Let's face it, custom cabinetry might last forever, but so what? Who goes 20, 25 years without a complete re-haul?
Re: Ikea cabinets. I have used these in a remodel where the budget was quite tight, and the quality and design were good for the price. The design tool on their site is very good. Although this was not in my own home, they seem fine after a couple of years, and I have had no complaints. I have seen some kitchens using Ikea cabinets on AT that make me wish we had just used Ikea for our own kitchen instead of forking out a fortune for custom ones.
Love this! It looks amazing. We used white gloss Ikea units for our last kitchen and I will be doing the same in our new kitchen! Lovely before and after :)
Why is it so hard to add a like button? AT uses it for their small cool contest. Why not add it to posts?
Looks fantastic! I love the additional windows over the cabinets-any way to bring in more light is a plus- and the bit of wood cabinets adds warmth. The touch of green is great, though I usually prefer a bit more color in white kitchens.
This is certainly beautiful, but just wouldn't work in our home. :-) Between the kids, dog, and adults constantly running in and out to the garden and the compost and recycling bins here in seemingly-always-muddy Maine, a white kitchen is a nice idea, but totally impractical.
We bought our contemporary (circa 1991) home in 2007, and I just recently ditched the white kitchen (old laminate cabinets, still in good condition but U G L Y, and boy, did every fingerprint, smudge and smear show!!!!). For around $50 worth of granite-look contact paper, I now have a brand new kitchen; everyone comments on how much better it looks than before.
We are planning an extensive kitchen remodel (probably IKEA) down the road, but really, this will tide us (OK, me!) over for at least another year or two.
Hey Guys,
Our company, Semihandmade, made the custom IKEA doors in the photos. We don't work for or with IKEA, but a few points about their product nonetheless:
1) Melamine over particleboard is standard in European cabinets. All the kitchen companies with hard-to-pronounce names use it.
2) Are plywood boxes better? Absolutely. But it's sort of like saying a BMW is better than are Honda - both are quality products, but one uses more expensive materials and therefore costs significantly more. The fact is, 3/4" thick cabinets properly installed - plumb, level and square - are not going anywhere.
3) IKEA offers a great warranty on their products.
4) IKEA uses the same Blum hardware that just about every custom cabinet shop in the US - including ours - uses.
5) Regardless of whether you go with IKEA, somebody else, or a fully-custom shop, the European/frameless/full-overlay style (as opposed to face-frame) offers the most flexibility down the road should your taste and/or financial situation change.
To the person who said white is a mess to clean up-it depends if you go with a flat finish or high gloss. We have high gloss doors in our kitchen, and they are MUCH easier to keep clean than the oak ones that were original to the condo. It's so easy to just swipe off a spill-everything comes off very easily.
Wish I could say the same for the white cesarstone countertops I insisted on splurging on......what a mistake.