Renovating a Kitchen on a Ramen Budget
Photography: Gieves Anderson
When I started thinking about renovating my kitchen, I thought it would be pretty straightforward. We’ve all seen those TV kitchen makeovers: a few cans of fresh paint, some new countertops, modern hardware, and voilà, you’re done!
That wasn’t the case with my kitchen. My kitchen, which could hold no more than two people at a time, needed to be gutted. So I started considering the possibilities: a custom-made island? refaced cabinets? But these were Band-Aid solutions. What I needed to do was redesign the kitchen from top to bottom.
I met with a cabinetmaker but quickly realized my budget couldn’t afford that option. I also met with several kitchen planners at Home Depot, but the price wasn’t all that different than for the custom one, and the lead time to receive and install the cabinets was several months. A design-savvy friend suggested I head to IKEA and look at its new kitchens. I was surprised to find the design options were similar to the ones I had seen at the fancy woodworker’s showroom. I spent an afternoon playing with IKEA’s design tool, which was easy to navigate. I quickly became excited by the possibilities but decided I still needed to enlist the help of an architect. I found one who had recommended IKEA kitchens to other clients. “The modular quality, price, and styling are the perfect foundation for a modern kitchen,” the architect explained to me.
The first thing he did was reconfigure my kitchen space completely. We knocked down a wall that had connected to a very small guest bedroom and allocated that space to the new kitchen. We decided to go with IKEA’s Hittarp style, which referenced the beadboard look of the kitchen’s original cabinets. We wanted a minimalist look but with a slight vintage feel to it. We decided against door hardware and instead opted for push latches, which gave it a cleaner look. For the interior, we carefully considered our storage needs and took full advantage of all of the great options available, including pull-out drawers behind the doors. The goal was to have an overall built-in and monolithic feel, so we constructed walls alongside the cabinets. We then painted everything in Farrow & Ball Cornforth White to keep with the more restrained look.
With all the cost savings from using IKEA cabinets and appliances, we were able to splurge on the countertops, lighting, and furniture. And once we layered in these other elements, we knew that the Hittarp cabinet series was a perfect foundation for the minimalist, slightly period style we were looking for.
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