The kitchen makeover has been one of the biggest improvements at Hong House so far, and as such, I think that it deserves the honor of receiving a feature in my first blog post!
We started with yellow walls, honey-tone cabinets, old, cracking Formica countertops and backsplash, a super-shallow sink that had me practically cursing each time I tried to wash dishes, and ceramic tile with dirty, dingy grout. Here are the before photos (the second featuring Kenny and Puma):
My first inclination for making over the kitchen was to paint the cabinets bright white, but then Kenny told me that he doesn’t care for the look of white kitchen cabinets. I love farmhouse style, but Kenny prefers a more modern look, so I have been trying to find a balance of the two as I decorate our home. Upon searching Pinterest for other kitchen looks, I was instantly drawn to the photos of kitchens with gray cabinets and white countertops. In my opinion, this combination still lends a farmhouse style, but a bit more modern take on it. I ended up using General Finishes Milk Paint in a shade called Driftwood. In retrospect, I am so glad that I went with the gray over white. I love the finished look, and using gray paint turned out to be much easier than white (I’ll detail how I painted our cabinets in a later post).
The existing countertops were an ugly Formica that was definitely showing its age. For their replacement, we originally picked out a gray-speckled Corian product, as we wanted a solid surface, but were trying to watch the budget. However, when we went to Home Depot to place the order, there was a sale on Quartz countertops, which would make the Quartz only slightly more expensive than the Corian. So we ended up going with the Quartz – Silestone in Blanco Maple. In the end, I’m sure the Quartz will hold up longer than the Corian, so it will be worth the extra money. And we love how it looks. We demo’d the old countertops ourselves (with Opa and Oma’s help of course), but we let Home Depot handle the installation of the new ones (one of the few things that we couldn’t do ourselves)!
For the backsplash, we went with a simple white subway tile that we purchased at Lowes. We used unsanded grout for the small grout lines.
Other small projects that made a huge difference were installing ceiling molding, painting the floor grout for a fresh, clean look, changing the cabinet hardware, and hanging the industrial-style shelves above the sink. Check back with the blog soon for detailed posts on some of these projects.
After much hard work, this is the current state of our kitchen:
Modern farmhouse kitchen with gray cabinets.
Cabinets painted with General Finishes Driftwood Milk Paint.
Silestone quartz countertops in Blanco Maple.
The kitchen at Hong House has come a long way, and we love it!
Modern farmhouse kitchen makeover with General Finishes Driftwood gray kitchen cabinets and Silestone Blanco Maple countertops.
Products used:
- Wall Paint – Ethereal White by Sherwin Williams
- Trim Paint – Simply White by Benjamin Moore
- Cabinet Paint – Driftwood Milk Paint by General Finishes
- Cabinet Hardware – Cosmas Flat Black Drawer Cup Pulls and Cosmas Flat Black Round Knobs
- Backsplash Tile – White Subway Tile
- Backsplash Grout – Mapei Unsanded Powder Grout in Warm Gray
- Floor Grout Paint – Polyblend Grout Renew in Oyster Gray
- Countertops – Silestone Blanco Maple