Modern Farmhouse Kitchen Reveal

Friends, I’m delighted to report that our kitchen renovation is complete. Phew! We’ve now got ourselves a modern farmhouse kitchen that is much more functional, cozy, and stylish than it ever was. It has just the right mix of farmhouse and coffee house elements such as shiplap, tile, two-tone cabinets, chalkboard, and stained wood.

Let me present to you our makeover….

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Modern Farmhouse Kitchen

If you recall, I shared our design vision in this post. The design showcased white shiplap on the back window wall, a new stainless steel range hood & stove, pretty blue tile under the range hood, and gorgeous two-tone cabinets. We chose Kraftmaid for our cabinets – Rustic Alder (in Chocolate Suede stain) for the bottom, and painted White Dove for the top and refrigerator encasement.

We also wanted to tie in a cozy coffee house feel, so we added a coffee/baking station cart and banquette seating. Our kitchen is long and galley-style, but it’s wide enough to hang out in. And boy, have we been spending lots of time in here!

This is the new view as you enter from our dining room:

Here is a ‘before’ photo of the same view with the original cabinets from our 1939 home:

Not long after we moved in 14 years ago, we replaced the floor with this black & white tile and installed a granite counter. The floor has held up well, so we decided to keep it.

Here’s another old view of the kitchen, circa 2012:

Kitchen Updates

With this latest renovation, we took down the upper left cabinets and moved the stove placement to this wall (when I say ‘we’ I mean our fabulous contractor!):

We also took down the upper right cabinets and replaced them with these glass-paned ones:

The back window wall got this gorgeous shiplap and pretty blue patterned tile under the hood. A quote from one of our favorite authors G.K. Chesterton is featured in the rustic letter-board frame (a gift from my sweet sister!):

I’ve had such fun adding wood tones, fabric textures and black & white accessories to the decor in here:

These hand-made crochet dish cloths add a homey farmhouse touch. You’ll find the easy pattern for them here:

We absolutely adore our gorgeous Silestone counters, which are in the white Statuario pattern. It made more sense to go with this pattern because it had a stark white background instead of cream. I tried to get a close up of the veining here, which resembles a lovely marble counter:

Kitchen Banquette

Another huge change to this kitchen involved creating a banquette dining area in the corner, and opening up that wall to the living room with an arched doorway.

Here is a ‘before’ photo of that wall. It was fun to decorate, but didn’t get much use:

For the banquette, we paired benches and seat cushions with a wood table I stained in Minwax Special Walnut. I also sewed a few of these pillow covers which you can find here and here. This corner is now one of our favorite places to hang out, especially for breakfast:

My husband found this beautiful icon of the Holy Family on Etsy. It’s such a meaningful tribute to family, so we decided to display it with photos of our own family.

The photo of my husband and I was taken during our courtship when he sported a beard. I thought it resembled St. Joseph in the icon, who is certainly a patron for all fathers. The photo of our children taken several years ago still pulls at my heartstrings. Such cuties!:

Next to the banquette is the new arched doorway to our living room. What a blessing to be able to walk directly into the living room from the kitchen, instead of traveling through the dining room and front entry to get there. And now we can chat across the rooms!

This is a view of our kitchen from the living room with the new doorway. The arch is consistent with the other doorways on the main floor:

You can see all the way to the back entry, as well as the new pantry cabinets surrounding the refrigerator. I’ll share more about that and our new baking/coffee station in the next post…

Modern Farmhouse Kitchen Resources

Resources for our kitchen:

• Kraftmaid cabinets, painted White Dove and Rustic Alder (stained Chocolate Suede)
• Silestone Statuario counter
• backsplash tile under range hood
• shiplap boards
• GE stove
• Bosch dishwasher
• ZLine range hood
• drawer hardware
• faucet
• unfinished kitchen table (I stained it with Minwax Special Walnut)
• banquette benches
• banquette seat cushions
• banquette light fixture

Be sure to check out Part 2 of the reveal here…