This 70-Square-Foot Kitchen Feels So Much Bigger After a $4,185 Makeover
ABOUT THIS BEFORE & AFTER
HOME TYPE: Apartment
PROJECT TYPE: Kitchen
SKILL LEVEL: DIY
RENTAL FRIENDLY: No
It’s totally possible to transform a kitchen using much of what’s already there. Just ask interior designer Andrea Granger, who upgraded her kitchen cabinets with bright purple paint, or Anwesha Majumder, who reached out to Andrea for a kitchen consult after seeing her striking purple kitchen makeover on Apartment Therapy.
When Anwesha first bought her apartment, “the overall vibe was beige,” she says. The kitchen had tan oak cabinets, a beige backsplash, brown speckled ’90s granite, and poorly laid slate floors. Anwesha initially paid to have her flooring upgraded and painted her cabinets white and navy as a Band-Aid fix, but after her consultation with Andrea, she decided to elevate the design even more.
The DIYer added fluted texture to her kitchen.
“Andrea had lots of helpful ideas,” Anwesha says. “The one I really latched on to, though, was Andrea’s suggestion to use beadboard for the backsplash, and also repeat that around the base of the peninsula and above the upper cabinets to eliminate the gap.” Anwesha explored lots of textured options (paneling, pole wrap, and tambour included), but the most budget-friendly option was half-round molding.
She found a company that sold her 738 feet of 1-inch poplar half round for $940 — which was enough to cover her surfaces, plus a little bit extra.
The dowels required a miter saw.
“I knew it would be easiest to do the many cuts with a miter saw, but I didn’t want to buy one just for this project. Luckily for me, there was a nascent D.C. tool library where I could rent one for free!” Anwesha says.
“Once I confirmed the lengths needed for a certain section of the project, I really started rocking and rolling with the cuts,” she adds. For example, the peninsula only took a few hours to complete. The hardest section was the wall above the cabinetry where the ceiling sloped, and each dowel had to be a different length. “I live in a 100-year-old building, so unsurprisingly, nothing is square,” Anwesha says.
The other hardest part was the time crunch. “I had nine days between when I returned home after Thanksgiving to my annual holiday party. In that time, I made hundreds of half-round cuts, glued them all up, and painted.” (All while working full-time, she says, adding that the deadline was super motivating!)
She painted over the wooden dowels.
Once all the fluting was installed, Anwesha selected sage green (Benjamin Moore’s Lush) for her lower cabinets and island and Benjamin Moore’s Decorator’s White for her upper cabinets and the dowels above the cabinetry.
Painting the upper dowels the same color as the cabinets — and using even more dowels for the backsplash — has an elongating effect on the room.
Light fixture swaps and accessories complete the kitchen.
Anwesha hired a handyman to move the outlet boxes out of the backsplash area and put them under the upper cabinets instead. “That made a huge difference in terms of the seamless look of the kitchen,” she says. But she did some electrical work herself, too!
“I switched out the ceiling light myself and put up the ceiling medallion,” she says. “I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on how to change out a light fixture, and it was honestly fairly easy.”
She also installed a Delta faucet, champagne bronze cabinet knobs, and lastly, hung some artwork over two cabinets for a pop of color. “I love that I did this with my own two hands, that the countertops seem like an intentional choice now and can almost shine … and the kitchen also doesn’t seem asynchronous from the rest of the apartment in terms of vibe and time period,” Anwesha says. “It also lets my plants and art shine, which makes me extra happy.”
Inspired? Submit your own project here.
Further Reading
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