Planning Our Family Kitchen – Our DIY House

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Designing a Family Kitchen by The DIY Mommy

One of the areas I’m most excited about in Our DIY House is our kitchen. I love to cook and bake and the kitchen is where we often spend time together as a little family.

I’ve always loved classic, white cottage kitchens, but I also like to be creative and think a little outside of the box.

When I came across several photos of two-tone black and white kitchens, I instantly fell in love:

Black and White Two Tone Kitchen Inpiration Photos

Source | Source | Source | Source

With black lower cabinets and cottage-style white upper cabinets, you can get the look of a cottage kitchen with the drama and unexpectedness of a more modern kitchen. (To see my initial concept, have a look at my Vintage Industrial Cottage Kitchen mood board.)

I achieved the look using cabinets from Ikea (black-brown Ramsjo cabinets for the lowers and white Lindingo cabinets for the uppers) and got to work planning the best use of space with Ikea’s online planning tool. Most of the upper cabinets are glass windowed, but I did leave some with solid doors for practical purposes (a.k.a. hiding junk).

At first, the island was too small:

Designing a Family Kitchen by The DIY Mommy. IKEA cabinets

Then, I thought a peninsula would be a better choice, but I decided I didn’t like how it cut off the kitchen from our dining nook (in the foreground):

Designing a Family Kitchen by The DIY Mommy. IKEA cabinets

Finally, I flipped the island around, added an overhang for stools and I was happy!

Designing a Family Kitchen by The DIY Mommy. IKEA cabinets

We’ll have to hack a couple of cabinets to fit (plus, we’re making one fit a microwave), but so far the cabinet building process has been really simple. We already have a lot of it installed this week!

Polished chrome light fixtures and knobs along with stainless steel appliances will give our family kitchen the vintage industrial farmhouse look that I love.

I’m also going to attempt to stain and seal some butcher block in a unique colour that will coordinate with our beautiful floors. Wish me luck!

Our DIY House by The DIY MommyThis post is part of my “Our DIY House” series where I’ll share with you my most exciting DIY ever – building a country house from the foundation up with my talented hubby! We’re crazy, we’re creative, we’re on a limited budget and we’re planning on having it finished in the Spring of 2013.

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