Before and After – Renovation 'The Kitchen'

Today I have another wonderful room renovation to share with you. A couple of weeks ago it was the turn fo Ruth and her 4 Bedroom Victorian House project where we looked at the Blue bedroom. Today I’d like to introduce you to Boho reader Suzanne who has a full scale projet on her hands. I have seen lots of photos and I have to say that her and her husband Mike have done an outstanding job, especially when you consider they did so much of it on a small budget.

Today Suzanne is showing us round the kitchen and I am just loving the finished result.

A bit of background about the house itself

We moved into our stone built cottage in Thwaites Brow in November 2013. It’s tucked away in a collection of houses called ‘Hog Holes’ after the sheep (or hoggets) that used to live in the fields.
There are five rooms in total, each with their individual charms and challenges. As we renovate we are aiming to preserve or uncover the features of the house while modernising and creating some storage. We don’t have a lot of cash to splash so we are doing all the labour ourselves and making things rather than buying them.
I’m a Designer and Mike is a Joiner so between us, with lots of elbow grease and a little help from our friends we are putting our own slant on our little but lovely cottage.

The Kitchen

Having said this, as the kitchen is the only room devoid of said features we decided to tear out the whole thing out and start from scratch! As we don’t have a lot of cash to splash and love to see things reused, we found a second hand oven, fridge and old sink on eBay, a cupboard from an old shop display to use as the wall unit, a slate from a fireplace to use as a blackboard and solid maple from an old squash court for the flooring. Our scavenging certainly saved us a few quid and afforded Mike the time to make the kitchen units by hand, which was essential for maximising the small space available. Each unit and door is hand made and painted.

As we are both keen cooks our spice collection was starting to get out of hand so we decided to display them to ensure they don’t get lost and gather dust at the back of the cupboards. Each jar was hand painted with blackboard paint -a job which seems to never get finished as we aquire more spices.

The space under the stairs has been transformed into a hidden pantry providing lots of useful hidden storage space for pans and the collection of blenders we seem to have acquired over time.

Our family spent the day applying the sage green paint job. All that remains to do is to turn the enormous piece of mahogany we have come across from a house clearance into a breakfast bar to hide the radiators and bin and provide us with a place to eat our breakfast and store our cook books.

What do you think? I think it looks amazing, they have both done a fantastic job and he end results are superb!

Suzanne will be back in a few weeks to show us another wonderful room renovation.

Mike is a joiner and can be contacted for joinery work on [email protected]
Suzanne is a designer of stationery and decor. Suzanne’s shop can be seen at www.suzanneoddydesignlimited and Facebook

I’d love to feature your home on the blog, if you have a restoration project or a new room you would like to show off then please email me [email protected]