A “Dated” Kitchen’s Dramatic Makeover Helps the Cabinets Look Brand-New (for Only $2,400!)
There are a lot of light, white, airy kitchens out there, but there are also some jet-black kitchens that prove going to the dark side is worth it. When a leak spurred Iina Kuuttila to renovate her kitchen, she went dramatic and dark.
“While the old kitchen wasn’t terrible, the stark contrast between the white panels and tiles and the orangey wood tone made it feel dated and too busy,” Iina says. “I find the all-black look calming and clean, so I always feel a sense of order and peace in this space,” Iina says.
The cabinets went from brown to black.
Iina lived with her brown cabinets for a few years. “Sure, it was dated, but I liked the solid wood and the integrated appliances,” she says. “I knew I wanted to update it eventually, but it wasn’t top priority.”
That all changed when Iina came back from vacation to find her upstairs neighbor’s dishwasher had been leaking into her kitchen. “After the initial stress of the situation passed, I saw this as the perfect opportunity for the update I had been wanting,” she says.
Thankfully, the cabinets and appliances were unharmed. Iina opted to keep the cabinetry and paint it with Frenchic’s chalk paint in Blackjack Al Fresco for a more modern look. But that wasn’t the only change!
The counters and backsplash double down on black.
Iina hired pros to help fix the leak damage, and her insurance paid for the floors. “While a crew worked on drying the subfloor, I took off all the cabinet doors and painted them black,” she says. “I visited a million kitchen manufacturers’ showrooms to find new countertops and a matching backsplash, and after sifting through all the options, decided black on black was the way to go.” She opted for a black backsplash with lots of veining, dark charcoal countertops, and matte black pulls.
When the worktops were delivered, Iina’s “excitement quickly turned to panic” when she realized there was going to be a slight gap between the new backsplash and the cabinets. “It looked awful, and I didn’t understand what went wrong since all the measurements matched what I had requested,” she recalls.
“It then dawned on me that while I had triple-checked the length and depth measurements, the previous countertop had been thicker, and I hadn’t thought to measure that thickness,” she says. Adding 1 centimeter of black silicone to the top and bottom of the backsplash “hid the disaster well enough,” she says. (Thank goodness for DIY solutions!)
Once the new floors were installed, putting everything back was surprisingly easy, Iina recalls. “I really just wanted a visual change, and it was easily accomplished with just paint,” she says. “While I did change the counters and backsplash, it would have been possible to get a similar result by just painting the old tile backsplash to match.”
The dining set got a DIY upgrade.
Iina’s main takeaway from the kitchen makeover? Don’t be afraid to DIY. “I had never painted cabinets before and was worried they would look too DIY,” Iina says. “I even tried having them professionally painted, but there was no availability in the area at the time, so I ended up doing it myself and loved the result!” She says she’s since been inspired to paint and try other DIY projects throughout her home.
One last DIY project Iina did in the kitchen is reviving her old Pier 1 table she bought in 2014. “My dining table is the first piece of furniture I ever bought on my own, and I couldn’t bear to part with it just yet,” she says. “I decided to strip the dark finish off the legs, and luckily the wood beneath was beautiful and just needed a coat of clear finish. Et voilà it was like I had a whole new table.”
She used the chairs from the “before” for another project and bought new lighter wood chairs “to bring in more natural textures to soften the otherwise quite moody space,” she explains. In addition, new, more modern pendant lights overhead complete the room. “I love, love, love my kitchen,” Iina says.
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This post originally appeared on Apartment Therapy. See it there: A “Dated” Kitchen’s $2,400 Makeover Helps the Cabinets Look Brand-New (It’s So Dramatic!)