One Room Challenge Spring 2022 Kitchen Remodel- Week One

Today begins the One Room Challenge Spring 2022. I’m both nervous and excited! I’ve been planning this kitchen remodel for about 10 months now. We were originally supposed to begin in February, but our custom cabinets were delayed, and we had to push everything back to late April. Since I’m doing this project with the same timeline as the ORC, I figured I’d jump in and join the fun. I’m not a dedicated blogger, but the One Room Challenge is something I always look forward to twice a year. Read more about the event here.

For some background, we moved into this house a year and a half ago. At the time, the house was only three years old and while I didn’t love the kitchen, I said I’d only do a minor facelift rather than tearing all of the builder-grade stuff out. After several months of living here, we changed our minds and I started designing a new cabinet configuration. We’re not moving any walls, just replacing perimeter cabinetry, appliances, lighting, and the backsplash.

Without further ado, here are some before shots.

We always planned on adding cabinets in our laundry room, which is currently an empty room with a washer and dryer in it. It just makes sense to remove the kitchen cabinets we don’t love and move them to the laundry room. We’ll install upgraded and updated cabinetry in the kitchen. 

My goal for this project is not only to take this kitchen from builder basic to high-end, but also to add much-needed personality and warmth. We have an open-plan home where the kitchen is always visible, so this space should be at least as interesting as the rest of the house.

Here’s a quick overview of the plan. We will:

• upgrade all appliances, replace wall oven and cooktop with a larger range

• hide countertop appliances

• lighten/warm up the space

• replace all perimeter cabinetry and balance the configuration to provide more symmetry

• create a focal point

I’m not revealing any of the material selections yet, but I will reveal what I’m NOT using this time around:

• white cabinets

• a boxy rectangular hood

• subway tile

• open shelving

Any guesses on what direction I’ll go in? Follow along to see what happens. Can we do this in eight weeks? I’m GC’ing this project myself, so I’m relying on everyone to show up when they’ve promised to. Plus, there are a few things that we’ll be DIY’ing. Lots more on my Instagram stories!

There are so many great projects going on during the tenth anniversary of the One Room Challenge, here’s the link to view everyone else who is participating.

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE SPRING 2019 WEEK 2

We are well in to week two of the One Room Challenge and things are rolling right along. This will be my fourth bathroom remodel as a homeowner. The first two were in our previous house and were DIY the entire way. For anyone DIYing a bathroom (or a kitchen for that matter) I feel your pain! Since buying our current home, my husband has “retired” from taking on remodeling projects. I don’t blame him.

We’ve hired a contractor to handle this remodel and it feels so luxurious. That’s not to say I’m not stressing, but at least I’m not swinging a sledgehammer this time.

The bathroom has gone from this

To this

To this. I’m loving the color of the pink insulation by the way.

We even got to get a peek of the original wallpaper. Nothing like a pink and blue 80’s houndstooth!

Now to build this place back up.

Inspiration

My Inspiration for the new bathroom was Candis Cayne’s kitchen featured on Design*Sponge. I love the cabinet color and fell head over heels for the black and white pattern created with the herringbone tile. I loved it so much a was ready to rip the design off wholesale. But in the end I decided against it for several reasons:

1. Really? Come up with your own ideas.

2. I couldn’t source black and white herringbone that would arrive on time and/or not blow my budget.

3. I did come up with my own tile pattern design, but I didn’t have faith in the tile installers to execute it well. I’m working with a new contractor and would really have to trust someone and know their skill level to do it right. Maybe next time!

4. In the end it just seemed over-designed for a small kids bathroom.

So I’m going with white porcelain herringbone from the tub to the ceiling. It will feel fresh and add just enough interest. And, even better, it’s really budget friendly.

In general, the design plan veered off in a less sophisticated, more tween girl friendly direction. See last week’s post for the other elements I’ve chosen for the room.

The vanity above has been ordered. I knew I wanted colored cabinetry for this room; I’ve put in white cabinets throughout the house and it’s time to step out of my comfort zone. This vanity not a true deep peacock blue like the inspiration pic, more of a navy in person. I’m slightly disappointed in the color, but it will look great with the final design. I love the clean lines and the carrara marble top. It weighs 350 pounds and needs to go up a flight of stairs, so wish us luck on that one!

Well demo was fun, tune in next week to see some progress with putting this thing back together.

Now take a look at the other ORC participants and their projects.

One Room Challenge Spring 2019 Week 1

I am beyond excited to be taking part in the One Room Challenge for the first time. I am a long time lurker but have never participated because the timing never worked. And I didn’t have a blog! But now I have a “sort of” blog so here we go….

The Before

I’m renovating my daughter’s bathroom. This project is way overdue! Behold the bathroom in its current state. Ugh. But before photos are supposed to be heinous right?

ORC bathroom before

That’s a lot of brown! Ok, so it’s not generally very interesting or appealing. But beyond aesthetics, we have a real problem that makes me dizzy. The floor is not level and slopes down toward the vanity side of the room. We’re told that this is not a structural problem. It may be house settling or possibly the house was just built this way. Sigh. Luckily this is something that can and will be fixed in the remodel.

Above is a visual map of all of my grievances with this bathroom. Nothing surprising, we’re ripping it all out and starting from scratch.

ORC Bathroom Before

Another view of the before. You can see where I committed to this project by starting to peel off the textured- over wallpaper. We also tried a few paint swatches and decided against them. The medicine cabinet is going. Flooring, vanity, frameless mirror, tile, all going. The only things staying are the tub and the toilet. Note to self, I need to plan more towel hanging space because that over the door hanger must go as well.

The wall opposite the vanity has a large linen closet. It happens to be the ONLY LINEN CLOSET IN THE HOUSE. I realized this on the day we moved in, as I went around searching for additional linen storage that didn’t exist.

The plan is to update the doors and trim. I’d also love to add an organization system to the inside of the closet because it is always crazy. I blame it on kids, but in reality it’s all of us. I mean, who put an empty fish tank in there?

I know that an organized closet is probably pie in the sky for this house, but we can at least try. We’ll have to see what time and budget allow, since closet innards are not considered critical path as we start out.

The Client

As I mentioned before, this is a kid’s bathroom. One of the reasons I could put this project off for seven years is because I don’t use it much! It also functions as a guest bathroom so I’d like a design that appeals to adults as well as a 10 year-old girl.

My daughter/client likes:

• nothing vintage! (ouch)

• black white and gold

• pastels, but not pink. She did recommend pale peachy pink walls for this bathroom, though. Yes, the cognitive dissonance is already starting.

• white marble

• cactus motifs

• wants a brighter bathroom

So I think I’m ready to reveal...

The Plan

Blue vanity, pendant lighting, marble floors, herringbone shower walls, wallpaper, GOLD. I’ll leave it at that for now. My client is happy and there’s a little something (ok, a lot) to make me happy too. I hope you follow along next week when all the fun really begins.

I’ll be updating my Instagram stories @k.laingdesign with extra project details.

Now take some time to check out the other participants on the One Room Challenge blog.