My only complaint, and it's a big one, is that you didn't post LARGER imbedded pictures! Love the kitchen!

Brilliant transformation. Beyond the lovely finishes, I think the separation of the runs of cabinets/appliances, along with the visual openness of the table in lieu of an island, give the space a wonderful unconfined feel.

Great thinking as well as implementation. Congrats.

Thanks for posting, it's beautiful! Would you mind sharing your kitchen wall color?

Thanks, everybody! The rooster clock, ha! My husband found it for $20 at a garage sale. The wall color is SW Hinoki. It's a soft buttery yellow that is not too yellow. theanimal - it has taken me three months to post any photos so be happy with what you've got!

We were on somewhat of a budget and had major structural issues we had to deal with. I originally wanted soapstone or honed Jet Mist but when we realized we could pay for a good portion of the powder room by going with ikea wood counters they were easy to give up. And I love the softness and warmth of the wood! The bathroom sink is bumped out over a stairway, which is why it doesn't go down to the floor. I think it was a pretty brilliant way to get what feels like a reasonable bathroom out of a small footprint.

I have been wanting to see someone use that table so well! Cheers and congratulations on a lovely job, from a fellow St. Paulite.

This is a beautiful space! My favorite elements are the backsplash tile, your ceiling and columns, the copper pots, and the neat way you tucked the powder room sink into the wall - so clever.

It's very beautiful, well done; and that teeny tiny bathroom is a charmer. The rug and towels go together perfectly, are they a set or did you find the rug/towels to match?

It's wonderful!!!! I love your powder room, too!

I like it! Congrats to you!

Beautiful!!! Great choices! Can you please share the powder room color you chose?

Wow! Very nice! I LOVE IT! Gotta go back and look one more time for the rooster clock! This kitchen is an inspiration for me! Thanks for sharing!
capegirl

Very well done! It's nice to see a 'budget' kitchen that looks so good, and I love the C&B island! The space looks so much more functional and beautiful without losing the integrity of the old house. Congratulations!

That is absolutely beautiful! Congrats on a job well done!

Can you tell me how big that powder room is? And when you get a chance, can you take a closer picture of the tray ceiling? Thanks!

Your kitchen is not huge but you made perfect use of the space you have. It was a smart move to have the open table instead of a closed in island in the middle. It would have looked cramped any other way....

I love the wood counters and consider them an asset and not a compromise. The look of your kitchen is fresh and inviting. It is traditional but perky and new. The yellow is such a happy color.

The powder room is pure genius. That is probably where you got the best bang for your buck on resale, decades from now ;).
btw - looking through the opening by the rooster clock, I can see the basics of an archway that looks intriguing.... any more pix of that?

Wow! What a lovely kitchen. I really like how you've made a unique, well designed space that seems to fit beautifully into your home. The small powder room is genius. And I have been eyeing that Crate and Barrel with lust and it looks stunning in your space. Thank you for sharing. Congratulations on your beautiful new kitchen.

I love it! What a wonderful space. Love the colors, the counters, the island. The floors are gorgeous. It all looks great together.

You have such a warm and inviting space. I really love what you did with it. That Crate and Barrel piece is fantastic, and is such a nice addition to that space!

Such a stunning job! And the powder room is the perfect solution! Are you good at sodoku puzzles, too? ;)
Congratulations! going to Crate & Barrel's website right now....

Thanks again, everyone! A few answers to your questions:

- The powder room dimensions are 33 inches wide x 76 inches long. The bump out over the stairs where the sink is is 35 1/2 wide by 18 deep.
- the bath towels and rug were both from Target but not a matched set.
- the bath color: it was a color from the Martha Stewart paint line at home depot but we mixed it into different paint so I don't know the name. I'll keep looking as it really is lovely. Looking through the names on the home depot website I think it might be "rain forest" but I'm not certain.
- a few of you mentioned the C&B table. It does look great and it's very well-made and sturdy. The marble is a bit of a pain. It's already fairly scratched and etched. Probably just typical marble but compared to the wood which I thought I would worry about it actually causes me to have to think about what I put on it. Also it isn't actually a full thick slab. It's a 1/2 inch slab that is seamed along the sides to look like it's 2 inches thick. So if you're considering it, keep these things in mind. For us it was exactly what we were looking for at a decent price so we're happy with it. And I agree that a built in island would have made the kitchen way too small. The moveable island gives us options and looks more like a farmhouse kitchen to me.

I'll post photos of the ceiling and the archway later today. The ceiling was a necessity as it hides some a/c ducting we installed (forgot to mention the project extended central air throughout the whole first floor of house, another huge improvement). It was also necessary as the ceilings are 8 1/2 feet tall in the "old" parts of the house, but only 8 feet in the 1990s addition (duh!). As the kitchen connects with both the old and new parts we added to the soffits so the perimeter is 8 feet tall and center is 8 1/2. And I think it adds a bit of interest too.

Someone spied the archway in the living room/dining room. It's what I like to think of as the "little bit of ugly" in the house. It's plaster made to look like stones, but a different texture than the already heavily textured plaster walls. When interviewing design/build firms for this job a litmus test for me was to ask what they thought of the archway. Several said to rip it out because it was ugly. The contractor we went with said "it's a bit ugly, but it's character." We knew he was a better fit for the job!

Awesome remodel! The kitchen is gorgeous, and I love how the powder room turned out.

I've seen the C&B island in person, and it's gorgeous!

I had the same thought as dianolo-I am loving your counters and not seeing them as a compromise at all. I don't think I'd like your kitchen nearly as much with granite or soapstone-the wood brings a lovely texture and the warmth and tone tie in your husband's grandmother's copper. (I love, love, love that you chose to display something so beautiful and personal in that way, even if you won't be cooking on them due to induction.)

I also want to compliment you on your selection of that table, too. It is the perfect scale for the space (and your pot rack.)

And your powder room? Brilliant! We turned a coat closet that I don't think is quite 3'x5' into a powder room in our 1913 home. I also agree you made a great investment for your convenience and future resale. (Much better than more expensive countertops!)

Congratulations baligirl and thank you for sharing your photos with us. :)

You did such a great job! I love the warm counters and the way the pots enhance everything! It looks like such an inviting place to be.

Love the sink in your powder room -- instantly adds sophistication to a small space.

(great plates, by the way -- we have the same ones! love them).

Just lovely. Such a friendly, inviting kitchen. The wood countertops give it so much warmth. The powder room is adorable. The color looks exactly like the color we painted our master bath.... SW Halcyan Green.

Mauviel has an interface disc for cooking with copper on induction. Amazon carries it. Have not tried this myself but it might be worth looking into.

Oh this kitchen really speaks to me, just beautiful. We used to live on Hamline ave, across from Como Park...what a beautiful area (we are now in PA). Enjoy your new kitchen!

What a great job you did! It is lovely, and I hope your family appreciates it.

Very nice...

The kitchen looks great. There is so much detail in it with the tray ceiling, the framed columns, the cabinet feet, the double edges on the cabinets, - it all sounds like it should be fussy but with the wood counters and floors to set it all of it looks great.
This is just a question and not a criticism - is there a reason you didn't continue the backsplash up behind the vent?
The bathroom - an ingenious use of space. Well done.
The whole thing is sooooo warm.

Thanks for all the compliments. We debated whether to continue the tile all the way up or not. It looks better in person than the photo as it hasn't been fully painted which the photo captures, but you dont notice in person. Maybe it would have looked more completed if we had continued the tile but at this point it's just the way it is and I'm happy with it.

While initially the wood seemed like a compromise, now I can't imagine the kitchen with cold, hard stone now. Especially after my 3 year old just ran into the countertop. Yes, he has a bump, but he doesn't have a concussion!

I'll try to post the photos I promised later today.

A lovely, warm and inviting kitchen, well done! Don't you just love the big Domsjo :-) (I have the single one, suited my space better) Also love the gorgeous marble table and the bathroom is soooo cute.

I love it! The wood floors and counters give so much warmth and depth to it, and I really like the way you did the columns and bar.

It looks great!! Love the wood countertops! Congrats!!

Gorgeous! I love the warm white with the color of the wood. And the copper pots over the lovely island. Beautiful.

I'm really curious about your cooktop and oven setup. I've been trying to find a way to get a 36" induction cooktop and double ovens into our small kitchen. I'm not familiar with the GE single-double - is it a double oven, or something different? Have you used it much yet? Thanks!

Here are the photos I promised. First, here are a couple of the ceiling and the columns. Not sure what you were looking for but hopefully these help. The columns were a bit tricky as they ended up needing to be wider than originally planned due to unforeseen issues so the columns ended up being slightly wider than the header. So we built a ring around the top so they didn’t look too Corinthian.

Here’s a photo of the “little bit of ugly” archway. Ignore the blue paint, we’re repainting the dining room as soon as we get done with the kitchen. Whenever that might be.

About the GE single/double oven (and induction cooktop). You can learn more on the GE website, but it is 2 ovens in the space of a single 30 inch wall oven. We love it. The smaller oven heats up in 5 minutes and is perfect for a single baking dish, pizza, even two 9 inch cake pans or pies side by side. Anything relatively flat. We learned the hard way not to bake a soufflé in it. Thank goodness it’s self-cleaning. The bottom, larger oven is really quite big. Certainly big enough for any turkey we’d do. It’s convection too, which I know some people value, but we’ve found we use the small oven (not convection) most of the time and everything comes out just beautiful (except said soufflé). We were worried we’d need a larger oven so we kept our old full-size 30 inch and planned to install in in our basement, but we have hosted dinners for as many as 16 people and didn’t need the old one so we’re going to try to Craigslist it soon. My husband wants to add that he finds the controls very intuitive and has set it up for automatic start with a timed cook time in separate ovens without any issue.

We were looking at Wolf and Blue Star’s but really feel like the combo of the 36 inch induction and single/double oven was a smarter choice in terms of functionality, and we tried to give it a bit of style with how we installed them. I think they had to both be GE for them to work the way we have them, but you could always install the single/double oven somewhere else and then use whatever cooktop you wanted elsewhere. But we are very very happy with the stacked combo after 4 months of extensive use. We got them from AJ Madison and had a good experience with them too, just as an aside.

Thanks for the details about the oven! Sounds great, I guess we'll have to try and see one in person.

it turned out great! I love it all! Well done!
my fav is the cute island.. oh! and my other fav are the wood counters. always a soft spot for wood counters! and the wood details, so right on with your house style.

oh!i have the same sink in my mudroom - love it!
Enjoy!

ci

You had me at 'copper pots', but what a wonderful, warm, restful space you've created. Love the sink cabinet and your beech counters!

Wow, you took on a big project yet kept it at a moderate budget. The kitchen came out beautiful! I looked at your before photos. What a transformation!

I'm more interested in the framing for the niche behind the cooktop and the two-tiered island. I like it how the niche is built in and seems easy to clean, and the island has a generous overhang without the corbels underneath. What's behind the scene? Some process photos and/or verbal explanations would be appreciated!

If I remember right, IKEA wooden countertops are of some standard depth (25 5/8"). So how did you do the bump out at the countertop so seamlessly? Not that we are going fancy (with bump out), I'm mainly just curious.

Again, job well done! Thank you for sharing!

Mudworm - I should probably get our great contractor to give better details, but I'll see if I can give you an overview. I'll also see if there are any photos of the work being done that might help.

The niche was just framed into the wall, just like you would do to add a window, except the back side of the "window" is drywall. We then used a marble threshold for the base of the niche so that gave us a bit more space on the shelf. Then the whole thing was tiled.

The bump out took a bit of work, but essentially we cut out part of a countertop that was about 5 inches deep and a little wider than the cooktop. That piece was affixed (glue only, I think) to the counters on the sides of the cooktop, which were notched out. This allowed for the smaller, bump out piece to be glued on two edges to the sides. (One thing about wood is that it expands and contracts but the bump out piece seems to be moving with the rest so I think it will be ok...)

The higher part of the island was one of the deeper Ikea countertops, with a custom rounded cut. It was affixed with a combination of glue to the top layer of the stub wall as well as pinned in place by the framing for the columns. To fit the bar around the existing columns, the areas on the side were cut out and then reaffixed when the bar was in place.

Ok, those are probably mostly useless explanations. I'll see if I can find any photos or write back with more specific questions and I'll get our contractor or my husband to respond with better technical details. I'm just glad someone is appreciating the work and creativity that was needed to try to add a few of these details (without breaking the bank).

Wow, those details all came out really well! I had no idea that the higher tier of the island is not a one piece. Thought the columns were built after the CT was in place. You all sure did a great job adding unique things to your kitchen without breaking the bank.

Very lovely, you'll enjoy this forever.
Lynn

Fabulous! I love your pendants and that island is PERFECT in your space! Your copper pots just sparkle. Everything goes together so well, and your powder room is so clever and very lovely!

Congratulations!

Beautiful and so functional! Love the warmth of the copper, countertops, and floor against the coolness of the marble and stainless. You obviously labored long and hard to get the details right (ceiling, columns, cab feet, bumpouts, islands). You did the same in the PR: vessel sink, farm house pump faucet, open shelves, and beautiful paint. I don't have a big kitchen either and am always looking for ideas to pack in more function. Glad to hear you love your 2-in-1 oven. I'm planning to use that, too.

What stains did you use on your beautiful floor and countertops (brand and color, please)? We have stained trim throughout the house and your colors (both floor and countertop) look like they would blend well with our trim color. TIA!

Enjoy your wonderful kitchen and PR! Thank you so much, and I hope you'll take the time to put your kitchen in the FKB!

Oh, my goodness, what a lovely kitchen! It's warm and inviting and functional. I love the columns and the 2-tiered island. Open yet still separate.

Glad to hear the praise about the GE oven. My only wish is that they would make this part of a double oven stack - a 3- in 2! Why is it I always want what isn't available? Sigh.

Flwrs-n-co: The floors are not stained, just red oak with a semi-gloss polyurethane. The counters were stained with Ipswich Pine from Minwax before the three coats of Waterlox Original. However I don't think the stain did much at all - it's pretty much the natural beech color with Waterlox.

Good luck trying to match your trim!

wow - that is so gorgeous! I LOVE your countertops! Everything seems so classic and in step with the home but also fresh and updated. Totally lovely.

I absolutely love it all!!! Love your colors on everything. I even love your wall colors the yellow and the blue. You have done such a great job and it's so different and perfect. Great job, makes me want to move right in there, ha ha don't worry I won't!!! lol.

Beautiful! love those copper pots and love your dish drawer, what a smart idea! I wish i had done that!! Hope you are enjoying it.

LOVE the kitchen! Great job!
How are you liking the frig?
What brand are those pendants? I love them!

Your bathroom is FABULOUS! I LOVE where you located the sink and mirror, GENIUS! GREAT USE OF SPACE!!

Enjoy and congrats!

Wow, I love your kitchen. It is warm and inviting, but more importantly, I loved how you used the space. If anyone missed baligirl's link to the Before Pix, scroll back up and check those out. It is enlightening.