A Complete Kitchen Gut and Remodel

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home.
It's so true.
It's where we hang out, where stories are told, bread is broken and family and friends are gathered.
Here's my journey of a kitchen remodel.


As you know, Casa de Loco was a complete gut and remodel.


It was a lot of work.


You can read about the master bath and living room, which I previously posted.


http://www.designasylumblog.com/master-bath-remodel/


http://www.designasylumblog.com/home-tour-casa-de-loco-living-room/


The house has wonderful bones.


It's my favorite style of home, mid-century modern. The family that built the house, in the early 70's, had an incredible vision.


My vision was different, but it was important to me that I stay true to the style.


I always tell my clients to treat the house as a client too.


Let the house have a voice.


Here is where we started with the kitchen:
The breakfast area was divided off from the den with a bar.


Two recessed alcoves were on the left of the kitchen, one was cabinetry and one was a desk.
Double ovens were on the wall that separated the breakfast room and the kitchen, with a pass-through.
The kitchen felt really small due to the layout.


I wanted to open all of that up, so we removed the dividing wall in order to reconfigure the appliance layout and add an island, which was really important for me.


So we removed it all.
This photo was taken about two months after we began.


You will notice the popcorn ceiling is gone, as are the beams that you could see in the first photo. The beams ran through out the den. I debated on keeping them, which meant we would have had to add one where the original kitchen wall was, but it was too much visually. I wanted a cleaner aesthetic.


We gutted the ceiling and added new insulation, then added new sheetrock. We also added more canned lighting where needed, and planned for lighting above the island.


Clean slate.


As a side note, if you do not want to go to the trouble and mess of removing popcorn ceilings, you can always sheetrock over them.


The next big decision I had to make was in regard to the paneling.


This picture is shot from the kitchen into the den. You see that it is fully paneled.


It's a lot of wood.


You also notice that the paneling sheets go all the way to the ceiling without being pieced vertically. It is a full sheet floor to ceiling and the ceiling height at the end of the den is at 12 foot. What you cannot see in this picture is that the black knots in the paneling run the entire space. What this all means is that this paneling was specifically cut for this room, I suppose from one tree.


Wow.
I felt a huge responsibility to keep the paneling in tact.


But I wasn't sure I could.


I thought about it a lot. The BHE liked it.


And all of this thinking led me to design a black kitchen.


I decided to embrace the paneling and make it work for me.


In order to do this, the first thing I decided to do was to accent the black knots in the wood and pull them out by painting the trim black.


All the trim in the house went black, as did the doors, with the exception of the master suite.


I used Sherwin-Williams 6258 Tricorn Black.


It's the perfect black.


I needed to balance the visual weight of all of the paneling from the den, into the kitchen, so it was important to have a lot of black for depth.


It was also important to balance the textures in the space. All of the paneling and the rock fireplace added up to a very 'heavy' feel for me. Those surfaces are very 'flat' in texture. In order to contrast that, I needed 'shine'.


Now nothing is prettier with black than Calcutta Gold marble. And it's shiny, which I needed.


So I chose Porcelanosa Calcutta Gold digital print 18 x 18 tiles for the flooring.
I also brought that into the dining room, living room and foyer, which is on the front side of the house.


Once I had those couple of decisions made, I was able to pull an entire schematic for the space together. Walls, lighting, cabinet finish, counter tops...the vision was forming in my mind.
Black, white and brass.


Yes, the vision is coming together at this point for me.
In the end, the kitchen came together nicely. It works great with the paneling, which I am really happy we kept.
Are you planning a remodel of any type soon?


Would love to know what you're up to!


To see more of the process head here:
Kellie from Design Asylum Blog
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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