Our family loves to cook and eat and everyone seems to always gather in the kitchen. The kitchen at the lake was one of the very first projects. And you can see why!
Our first thought was to remove the upper cabinets and paint them white, but we knew we needed more space in the kitchen so the easiest thing to do was to pull everything out and start from scratch.
There was a huge hole in the wall that looked from the den into the kitchen and vice versa beside the staircase. I think Mr. E. built the pass through as a way to open up the spaces, but it took away from valuable wall space in the kitchen. My husband framed in the hole and sheet rocked over it. Now we had more room in the kitchen for more cabinets and could relocate the refrigerator.
Plus, we had a perfect spot for THE fish. My husband caught it the year we bought the lake house, so it was perfect timing! (Notice the spot light over the fish. Previously we had a small chandelier in that spot but it blocked the view of the fish-Heaven forbid- so it didn’t last long. Hence the spot light.)
After we ripped out the kitchen cabinets and appliances we took detailed measurements and took our plans to Home Depot. They were terrific to work with! They used a computer program to lay out the kitchen and then printed 3-D pictures of how it would look. We were able to get everything we wanted and more! We wanted a decorative hood over the stove, white cabinets and black granite countertops. (We ended up ordering the counter tops from a local company that specialized in granite.) I always wanted a pot filler and finally got one!
We left the sink in its original place. There is a cute little window behind the sink that bumps out sort of like a little terrarium with a shelf. It would be ideal for a tiny herb garden or flowers. And of course it was the perfect spot for a sweet vintage chandelier!
We added a small island for extra seating and bought a rolling butcher block island for extra prep space. It can easily be rolled out of the way when we have a crowd. The kitchen opens out to a large deck so it’s simple to grill and eat outside whenever we want! We plan to put in a subway tile backsplash at some point and switch out the ceiling light fixture in the middle of the kitchen. (with a nautical fixture that I have in my stash, of course!) We love our little lake kitchen and we are so pleased with how it turned out. We doubled the storage space and made it much more functional. I love to look at our before and after pictures!
