Rustic Modern Kitchen

The One Room Challenge for Fall 2020 is complete. It is such a fun, crazy, collaborative event put on by Better Homes and Gardens. I decided to participate when we put a contract down on a fixer up lake house in East Texas. What a crazy idea!!!
Our closing was a month delayed, which just left a precious 3 weeks to get the kitchen done. One saving grace is that we almost all of the work ourselves. Waiting for trades can really slow a project down! Let's start with a before picture of this space!
We planned to convert the dining room into the kitchen. This space has great lake views and cool beams that set the design into motion. It has a long way to go to be a kitchen though!

Here is the current kitchen. A cramped little room at the back of the house. It should be serving as mudroom, laundry, pantry, kitchen, and it has zero character. Moving it made such a difference!

Now let's take a look at the design plan. We knew that based on the layout, upper cabinets were out of the question. We decided to incorporate floating shelves to serve as storage and leave the window as open as possible. We also planned on a vintage style fridge to eliminate the need for an upper fridge cabinet that would have run into the beams. 

Now let's talk through the materials....

Cabinets:

We used Ikea Cabinets for the boxes and their black/brown door fronts. We even purchased the dishwasher and cover panel from Ikea. The process was so easy and everything arrived so fast. That was such a good surprise! 

Hardware:

The cabinet hardware if copper pipes cut down to 7". We placed a copper cap on each one and mounted them to the drawers using bell clamps. They came out to less than $3 per pull and make such a statement!

Counter tops:

We used birch butcher block from Home Depot. For our 9' of cabinetry we used to 5' pieces so that we would have a seam behind the sink. We sealed the counter tops with dark tung oil.

Sink:

We used the Ikea Farm House sink and have been so happy with it. It is perfect for the space, good quality and a great price!

Faucet: 

The faucet was an Amazon find and it is also great quality for the price.

Refrigerator:

We purchased this refrigerator from Amazon. It is a smaller fridge, but worked great in this space. I did not want to do a full height refrigerator because it would have felt unfinished without an upper cabinet. Space and beams did not allow for that. I gave it an upgrade by painting the chrome with black chalk paint and finishing with gilding wax.

Floating Shelves:

The shelves were a kit from Amazon. We ordered two sets to space out over the 3 windows. The shelves are 8' select pine boards that were stained in Early American MinWax and given 2 coats of poly. 

The runner: 

The runner was also an Amazon purchase and I am in love with how it looks in the space. It from the Loloi collaboration with Chris Loves Julia. 

Sconces:

Another Amazon find! The pack of 3 was too good a price to pass up. To make it more copper I used the gilding paste again.

Accessorries:

The plates and mugs are from Dollar Tree! Can you believe it! They are my absolute favorites for shelf staging and also hold up really well to everyday use.  Most of the other items are thrifted. Copper is having a moment and I was so excited to score some good vintage pieces that we not crazy expensive!

You can find all of the Amazon items in my Amazon Storefront. Did I leave out any details you were curious about? 

And if you can't get enough kitchen before and afters...check out this gorgeous one from The Brain and The Brawn. It is so good!