One Room Challenge {Guest}: Carriage House Kitchen - Week 2

Week 2 already!  For those of you new to HGL, I'm participating in the One Room Challenge and recreating the kitchen of my historic carriage house in Newport, Rhode Island. If you've been following HGL on Instagram (@seasaltinterieurs) you'll know we're making progress!

Here's the plan:

• Remove upper cabinets
• Eliminate bulky beam, bad boxing, and moulding along back wall - replace with steel supporting brackets, low-profile box, and add new moulding around top of french door
• Swap multi-colored granite countertops for classic, honed carrara
  
• Run glossy white subway tile / white grout backsplash from counter to ceiling
  
• Add open shelving with wood brackets + under-mount LED lighting
  
• Remove beadboard from lower cabinets, add new shaker fronts + porcelain knobs
• Recycle fat, deep fridge - replace with new 24" bottom freezer model (ice maker!)
• Build 2 new pantry cabinets on either side of fridge
  
• Source 1 comfortable new bar stool
• Keep dual-fuel range, install new black door fronts
• Add sleek new microwave drawer to island, eliminate island bar at front to improve flow
• Pull farmhouse sink a bit forward, adjust plumbing, add new bridge faucet + ultra-quiet disposal
• Add new space for cocktail & coffee creation with open shelving, new wine fridge + storage
• Ditch 3 ugly pendants over island in favor of a single industrial fixture
• Paint everything white
• Hardwoods & hood remain as-is

Quick reminder of how everything looked when I purchased the carriage house in August,

and progress to date:

initial demo of kitchen, including built-ins/soffit to left, wrought iron railing/beadboard above

demo of back wall, weird beam revealed under ugly boxing

fussy beadboard fronts gone, beam replaced with steel brackets, new plywood base ready for tile

borrowed existing, too-skinny cabinet for new cocktail zone; building wider cabinet to replace

new twin pantries will surround new counter-depth fridge

new wider cabinet installed just right of the range, electrical work for under-mount lighting complete

new brackets installed and, together with cabinets, ready for matte lacquer (6-layer process!)

Fingers crossed marble and tile will be installed next week.  Big question remaining - will the new lacquered cabinet fronts be completed as well?

Stay tuned.

Going Dutch

Everyone loves a dutch door.  Everyone.

But they do complicate matters, especially in cold climes like New England.  There's hardware confusion, heat loss, style decisions, installation issues - the list goes on.  But despite everything, their charm is undeniable.

My house came with 2 dutch doors - at the front and (somewhat inexplicably) off a bedroom - both saddled with horribly ugly storms.  Unfortunately, the front door had been badly installed and poorly made.  It was a mess of mismatched hardware and hot glue (?), draped with an unremarkable textile and requiring asap replacement.  But where to go from here?

These - a bit like mine with lights - appear to be very popular (notice all the lovely hardware - not at all like mine)

 

And no lights, lovely too...

 

Decisions, decisions.

One Room Challenge {Guest}: Carriage House Kitchen - Week 1

If this is your 1st visit to HGL, welcome!  I started blogging in 2008, and HOLLY GOES LIGHTLY survived loads of change in my life - much backing and forthing over the Atlantic and upping and downing of the east coast.  But during that time, I became more and more enamored of the immediacy of Instagram (@seasaltinterieurs) and other forms of social media.  HOLLY GOES LIGHTLY went on sabbatical.

Recently, though, I bought a 19th c. carriage house in Newport, Rhode Island, that needed some work to make it my own.  Wanting a means to document the changes, I remembered my old blog. Today's kick-off of the Fall 2016 One Room Challenge (ORC) was just the push I needed to bring it back. (In case you're unfamiliar, ORC is the biannual design-fest / brainchild of Linda from Calling it Home that challenges design junkies to make over a space in 6 weeks.)

For my first go, I've decided on the kitchen.  The before is just below - exactly as it looked when i first viewed it with my r/e agent.  Perfectly respectable and a decent layout, but definitely not living up to its full potential.

{photo courtesy of Sotheby's International - Gustave White}

{photo courtesy of Sotheby's International - Gustave White}

 And after the initial demo day...

 

Over the next six weeks, I'll tweak various aspects to create a lighter, brighter, more open space.  My new kitchen will (hopefully) optimize the existing footprint, better reflect the historic aspects of the carriage house, and blend more coherently with the adjoining living areas.  Wish me luck!