Before & After: A Decaying 1950s Kitchen Gets Stunning “Vintage-Inspired” Green Cabinets

Moving into an older home comes with countless gifts, like a storied past to share at dinner parties, an unreplicable charm, and sometimes the opportunity to start fresh while honoring the home’s bones. TikTokers Skyler Johnson and Angelina Murphy got to experience just that in their mid-century modern 1950s Los Angeles home. 

After looking for a fixer-upper to buy, the couple fell in love with this two-bedroom home, and the idea of modernizing the home came naturally to contractor Skyler. However, some rooms’ original details made replacing them hard to swallow — especially in the kitchen.

“We actually loved the kitchen before. It was very charming with blue tile and a classic 1950s layout,” Angelina says. “Unfortunately, the cabinets were completely degraded, and parts of the tile were falling apart. There also wasn’t as much kitchen cabinetry storage space as we wanted. The flooring had three layers of linoleum stacked on top of each other, so it definitely needed some help all around.”

It was Angelina and Skyler’s goal to “honor the charm” of the kitchen while updating it in shades of green. The couple started demolishing some of the existing kitchen, like the cabinets, tile, and linoleum, on the first day of living in the house. They appreciated the original kitchen’s layout (including the corner sink!) and wanted to keep it intact while making it feel more spacious by opening the doorway and walls. Once the room was empty, the couple painted the new cabinets in Sherwin-Williams’s Lounge Green. 

“While we knew we wanted our kitchen to be green, the shade of green we selected is actually totally different than what we initially envisioned,” Angelina explains. “We decided to go with a more vintage shade of green in honor of the original kitchen.”

Although Skyler is a skilled contractor, the couple hired some professional help on certain aspects of the remodel. The duo painted the cabinets, demolished the existing fixtures, and installed their new appliances, while contractors installed the countertops and backsplash. 

It’s not just the layout and color that honor the home’s history. “We kept the original milk door from 1950,” Angelina says. “While it has no practical use, we wanted to keep it as an homage to the house. We also found a milk jug from 1949 in the crawl space of our house that we now keep in the milk door!”

Of course, they also opted for a few modern touches that added functionality to the room. For example, all outlets have special ports that also charge their phones. The microwave and fridge don’t have handles to make the room feel larger, and a spice drawer (instead of a cabinet) makes finding their desired seasoning a breeze. 

The couple worked on the kitchen in stages to complete the entire transformation, but the entire home renovation took around five months. The kitchen renovation cost around $27,000, over half their budget for the whole home, but it was all worth it. “We love that our kitchen is bright, happy, spacious, and effective when it comes to storage,” Angelina says. 

To see how they updated the rest of their space, visit the full home tour on Apartment Therapy.