Kitchen Reno Before + After
It is finally finished
Seven months later, the kitchen is finally done! Okay, it's been done for a little while, but, as with any renovation project, there were lots of little finishing elements that took longer than expected to finalise. But, it's finally finished, and it is everything I had ever hoped for and more!
Before I show you the finished space, let me remind you what we were starting with. When we were looking to buy a house, something we had been saving for over many years, we had almost resigned ourselves to moving out of London, at least moving a lot further out. But, we really wanted to stay in Walthamstow. After living here for a few years (and living in the general north/east London area for over a decade), we felt settled and wanted to deepen our roots here – but the pricing felt like a step too far. Then, after we decided to stop looking locally, our estate agent called and asked if we were up for seeing a renovation project, which just so happened to be on the street we already lived on. Very excitedly, we jumped at seeing the house, being the first people through the door. It was a bit of a wreck. Okay - a quite significant wreck. Clearly not touched in decades, it needed a LOT of work, but, as they say, it had good bones. Most importantly, we could afford it and have enough money to renovate it (or so we thought). After our hopes were raised, the seller decided to jack up the price by a ridiculous amount of money, and just like that, the dream was dashed. We ended up putting in an offer at the original asking price, and after the seller realised no one was willing to pay more, he accepted. Let me show the house as it was on the day we moved in.
Yes, the bathroom was really carpeted!
What we didn’t realise was that the kitchen was basically a write-off; it was slowly falling to pieces, and it was incredibly depressing working in that space day in and day out. Dark and damp It genuinely affected my mood; I kept reminding myself that this was all part of the plan and that it was temporary. Yet, I was desperate to be in the finished space. But we needed time to save; the renovation costs were more than we anticipated (isn't it always?). We’d been served up a massive dose of reality; all the trades we spoke to basically laughed in our faces when we told them our budget and what we wanted to achieve, the word ‘phasing’ became a new part of our vocabulary. Instead of renovating the whole house at once, we had to decide whether to focus on the upstairs or the downstairs, putting off the rest for a later date. After realising I couldn’t really work in the kitchen as it was, we made the sensible decision to focus on the downstairs space. A year after we moved in, the work started, and slowly the space transformed. We lived upstairs during the entire process to save some money, and so for seven months it was Mike, Wesley and me, accompanied by a whole host of builders. Cosy! With only a few disastrous moments, the build went along as well as can be expected for such an old property. Thankfully, as I write this sat in my new space, I can say it was all worth it.
The renovation process caused me to completely fall out of love with cooking and, to be honest, even a little bit with baking. As the kitchen was obviously off limits, we had to create a space in which we could cook but also a space where I could work. That space was the spare bedroom. We added my old workbench, and I bought a secondhand oven (the oven we inherited was a beast and wouldn’t fit up the stairs) and made it work as best we could. The biggest issue was the lack of a sink. For seven months we did the washing up in the bath. I can say with every fibre of my being that this was a terrible idea. If you think it sounds like a bad idea as a regular person who cooks an average amount, imagine how many dishes I wash as a baker testing recipes all day every day?! It got old so very quickly, so much so that we made the decision to actually stop cooking and start using a meal delivery service; the slight extra cost was countered by a reduced amount of washing up and a slightly reduced level of grumpiness on my part.
But let’s get to the fun part, the new kitchen! When we started looking for kitchen companies, we realised there were a few different ways of going about it. We could do fully bespoke, we could do base units from Ikea and get custom fronts, or we could do something off the shelf from a high street kitchen company. Pricing meant that bespoke was out of the question, and from a look perspective, the custom fronts seemed like a viable option. But in the end we went a different direction. I was approached by the founders of Uncommon Projects, a bespoke kitchen company here in London. I had followed their social media for years and loved their kitchens but had ruled them out as they make bespoke kitchens. They were, they told me, actually about to launch a semi-bespoke range and asked if I’d be interested in working with them on this new range (full disclosure – we paid for the kitchen but did receive a discount for work I will be doing with them over the next year). The range is called Core, and the idea is that you get a modular kitchen with the same incredible quality Uncommon Projects are known for, but at a lower price point. This is achieved by measuring the space yourself (or with an architect to builder) and having your builder install instead of their own team. This, combined with a modular system, means you can get an amazing Uncommon Projects kitchen at a lower price point. Built on plywood chassis’ these are kitchens that will last a lifetime. This was particularly important to me because this kitchen had to be a workhorse; I spend most of my day in the kitchen baking, and it needed to stand up to that level of usage.
I cannot tell you how happy it makes me walking into the space each morning and how much I have loved cooking and baking in the space; it has been a complete joy. In the short time we’ve been occupying the space, we’ve taken every opportunity to have people over, to entertain, to make the kitchen the heart of the home we really hoped to create. I also feel very lucky that we ended up with a team of trades that have been incredibly easy to work with. And, whilst I love the entire space, there are a couple of things I wanted to highlight, things that I am surprised have become my favourite details.
Spice Cupboard
This space was initially going to be a dead space. Hidden behind the cupboard door is a steel beam, and in the original plans it would need to be covered by a fake cabinet door. With a little clever thinking from Uncommon Projects, they were able to recover a little space and turn it into the most useful spice cabinet. It is the perfect depth to hold canned food, so it has become a space that holds our spices, oils and any canned food. Whilst the kitchen is absolutely jam-packed with storage, this has been an invaluable and unexpected space.
Baking Tray Drawer
This drawer, hidden under the oven, is a baker's dream. It holds every single baking tray, cooling rack and chopping board that we own, and it couldn’t be more perfect if we tried.
The Island
When our wonderful architect (BAT Studio) initially designed the kitchen, the island we had was smaller, as we had chosen more of a peninsula design. But again, after speaking to the team at Uncommon Projects, they suggested we had the space to do a more dramatic island, and the result is the social kitchen we wanted but with the island I have always dreamed of, all the space a baker could ever want!
Downdraft Hob
When the idea of the island was finalised, we knew we wanted to avoid a traditional hob. They’re extremely ugly, and they take up so much space. Instead we went with a downdraft hob from AEG and it has made the space so much more open. As we also shifted from gas to induction the space is also cooler.
Drawers
How boring does it sound that drawers are one of my favourite elements? But it is true. We took Uncommon Projects advice and opted for a design that focused on drawers instead of cupboards. The dining room does have a wall of cabinets, but the kitchen proper is all drawers. These generous drawers are so much easier to use than cupboards you have to go rooting around in. They have made the kitchen feel so much more organised, and it's become a much more functional space because of this.
The Details
Kitchen - Uncommon Projects (Core range)
Worktop - Topus Concrete from Caesarstone
Fittings - Dowsing and Reynolds (in the Whipped Cream colourway)
Appliances - AEG in a beautiful matte black finish
Paint - Duvet Day by Coat Paint
Dining Table - Dusk (on sale, bargain!)
Flooring - Claybrook Studio
Kitchen Tap - Tap Warehouse
Backsplash Tiles - Yorkshire Tile Company