When Kitchn reader Kathryn and her husband found the weekend house of their dreams, it was perfect in almost every way. While it did have a huge garden (great for Kathryn's intense gardening obsession), the kitchen was small and outdated. Six months later the couple decided to fix that problem. Here's what they did:
In Kathryn's words:
My husband and I bought a weekend property with a large garden in Sonoma last fall so I could exercise my gardening obsession. The goal was to grow a lot of our own food. We had hoped to find a home with an expansive open plan kitchen but no luck. We did find a property that was perfect in every way (especially the garden) except it had an outdated, galley kitchen with a location that made it impossible to even hope for a large space. After living in it for six months, I couldn't wait any longer and we took the plunge to gut it. We saved on cabinets by using IKEA (we have a 12 year old IKEA kitchen in the city and it still looks great) so we could splurge on appliances and fittings. I finally have the stove of my dreams and love canning and cooking on it every chance I get. Since there isn't much room for storage (I wanted few upper cabinets to keep the tight space open) so we just renovated a nearby laundry room to accommodate all the canned veggies and fruits from the garden. The garden has 16 raised beds and 14 fruit trees, enough to keep me busy in the kitchen and garden every weekend!
Read More: Read more about Kathryn's gardening adventures at her blog: Weekend Edible
How fun is that red stove? We love the new look.
Thanks, Kathryn!
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Really nice. I'd love to cook in this kitchen! Definitely some inspiration for my own galley.
Love it! That red stove is fabulous and really helps add a pop of color to that room. And I'm totally jealous of all those drawers.
This is beautiful! Such a great use of space in a small kitchen. I love the idea of having drawers all throughout instead of tons of heavy top cabinetry, it really keeps the space open.
Wow! Kathryn this is a beautiful renovation and functional kitchen. I checked out your blog and your garden is amazing! I am unfamiliar with Sonoma gardening so am wondering how you keep it irrigated during the week when you are not there? Perhaps there is enough rain to keep it healthy? I live in New Mexico, so this would be more difficult here, I think.
LOVE that sink.
I just renovated my kitchen. How come I didn't get a matching cat? I think I got ripped off.
Thanks, rowantree. New Mexico is so beautiful, lucky you to live there. The only way our garden survives during the week is irrigation during the summer. Sonoma is bone dry from May through November with all the rains in the winter and early spring. The previous owners had installed the main lines but it took a good two weeks of setup in the early spring to make sure each bed was supplied. I'm an irrigation pro now! The ultimate goal is to set up a catchment system for the winter rain and to replace the lawn with drought tolerant plants. Lots of work ahead of us. Best of luck with your garden!
Really cute, I love the red stove. But I have to say, the kitchen was pretty nice before and had cute cabinets already. If they were in good shape, I hope you were able to donate them or sell them.
I am green with envy. I love this kitchen.
love animals but NOT on the kitchen counter, yuck
I love every single thing about this kitchen! So bright and pretty!
fabulous
Cuter before, I would have switched out the sink and updated it in more minor ways. It just seems bland to me now.
I love it! what type of countertop is that?
You did a beautiful job! And what a beautiful place Sonoma is, you are so lucky to have a place there!
LOVE the redone kitchen and the tuxedo kitty, but letting an animal up on kitchen surfaces is a bad idea for so many reasons!
I know where my indoor/outdoor cats go and what they get up to; they get the FLOORS dirty enough that I know for sure I would never want them on my kitchen counters,
Plus, even if you discount the cleanliness consideration, kitchen surfaces aren't really safe for animals, between knives, cooktops and whatever else.
WOW
you did it a GREAT JOB
EXTRA
The before was pretty cute. You basically kept that same cottage-y feel but with a modern feel. Great work. Love it. Using the budget friendly cabinets (which are great) to splurge for the stove was a perfect choice.
Love the renovation!
If the owner is reading this, what material/stone are the counter tops? And the finish, honed?
Thanks for the lovely comments everyone!
The kitchen counter is honed black granite.
The existing cabinets were in terrible shape and the counter had never been bolted down so every time you tried to cut on it, the countertop moved! Our contractor took some of them that were salvageable and we kept some of the appliances for a small studio kitchen we have on the property.