Boerum Hill Kitchen Reno
A reader writes in…The original kitchen consisted of a lime green theme complete with torn formica and beaten up cabinets dating from the early 60’s. It is located on the parlor floor of a 4-story Boerum Hill brownstone in a 6×20 extension at the rear. It was very narrow and both the floor and ceiling…
A reader writes in…The original kitchen consisted of a lime green theme complete with torn formica and beaten up cabinets dating from the early 60’s. It is located on the parlor floor of a 4-story Boerum Hill brownstone in a 6×20 extension at the rear. It was very narrow and both the floor and ceiling suffered from rotten beams and leaned on a 6″ incline. When we started into the renovation, we were quite naïve. We had no architect or designer and decided we’d learn as we went along. We felt any money we had was better spent on the house.
We started by totally gutting the old kitchen, new beams for the floor and ceiling. We added a large picture window to bring in light and copied the surrounding wood molding from elsewhere in the house. In the new kitchen we put down a slate floor, with suntouch radiant heat underneath. So far that’s worked well in all the kitchens and bathrooms in the house at a reasonable price.
The cabinets are from Lowes, nothing special but solid cherry fronts which we wanted. The appliances are all GE Monogram which have turned out to be very reliable so far. Not the cheapest but not Viking or Wolfe either. Like Brownstoner, we felt significant investment in cabinets was a waste as we someday hope to expand the kitchen.
Our favorite part of the kitchen is the stainless steel tile backsplash. The tiles proved to be very expensive from Lowes or Home Depot but we found a place on the web that gave us a much better price. It still wasn’t too cheap but we really like the finished effect when the under counter lights are turned on.
I know you can stain wood any tint you want–like giving cherry wood a minwax “golden oak” stain. What the above cabs look like. My cabinets were custom made by a wood worker artisan and are maple stained with a warm cherry glow. Our kitchen faces south and gets lots of sun, If you know anything about wood and stains, you know that cherry especially gets dark from sun exposure and age.
they look like grandma’s “oakey” cabinets trying to look modern
exactly. i would love to see pictures of some of the places where the “haters” on this site live.
and the cabinets are not “oakey”, they’re cherry. it’s a huge difference. the grain patterns are not even close. “oak” is not a color. it’s a type of wood. it can be stained many different colors as can cherry, so your comment makes no sense.
Anonymous 11:02am – Care to show us your masterpiece kitchen then? Why not let the readers decide whose kitchen looks best! I suspect you wont meet the challenge…
I totally agree with AL 1:46. I’m not an architect, but I’ve done the whole renovation thing and thought I learned alot in the process. I saw the pix and the first couple of comments and thought, what are these people thinking? This kitchen looks slapped together and not well thought out. It just looks odd and the fridge and sink placement looks odd. Sure, they’ve got a wine fridge, but that one thing does’nt make the kitchen look great. Its the whole of it, and the “oakey” colored cabinets don’t help.
E at 6:02pm – we bought the stainless tiles for the backsplash at stainlessdecor.com. They were great value compared to the rest and the quality of the tiles was very good (no defects, no returns etc)
“Composite materials, plastic, glass, metal…keeping wood to a minimum. I hate those old fashioned looking cabinets.”
let’s come back in 10 years and see which looks stupid and dated, cherry wood cabinets or plastic/metal cabinets.
Thanks so much to everybody who commented on our kitchen. I apologize for arriving so late to the discussion but I’ve only just returned from work. I appreciate all the feedback (even from Al the architect!), I guess you can’t please everybody. All of your comments were very encouraging and made us really happy!
So, I’d like to reply to the questions in the order they came in (as best I can):
Anon 9:34am – yes, we made the tough decision to go with the wine fridge as it forced us to move the sink into the corner. We love our wine and we’re not heavy users of the sink – the dishwasher gets all the dishes
NewStoner 9:44am – great question and I’m happy to give a breakdown of costs, hopefully others will be able to use the information. We did a LOT of shopping around.
Black honed granite counter top – $3,000
Lowes kitchen cabinets – $10,000
GE Monogram appliances – $15,000 (dishwasher, 6 burner dual fuel stove, Fridge, Wine Fridge, Microwave) – a lot of negotiation and shopping around here
Double glazed picture window – $450 – Park Slope Glass
Franke ATT-400 Sink Faucet – $760
Stainless Steel tiles for backsplash – $1700 – this took a long time to find at a reasonable price, Lowes & Home Depot were 5x this price – bought online
Slate tiles floor – $100
Labor & Materials – ~$12,000
Suntouch floor mat and digital thermostat – $300 – warmyourfloor.com – best value here
Total – Approx. $43,300 (not including structural work we had to do to the extension, floor and ceiling beams)
The entire process took around 2 months but we delayed the process a lot trying to find materials at a good price…
BedStyliving 10:57 AM – I did have a contractor but we were very hands on throughout the process, sourcing all the materials etc. No architect or designer. Perhaps we should have hired AL? he seems to have a very pleasant disposition…
Diana 12:32 PM – These were plain slate tiles from Lowes, nothing special at all. I did seal them, the glossy finish from the sealant faded away after a few days. The slate tiles are definitely not slippery but they can be quite cold underfoot so I would recommend the suntouch floor, its not a lot of extra money if you already have the floor up.
Anonymous 1:53 PM – hilarious comment, thanks for the support
Anonymous 2:02 PM – The big window has been a god send to us. It fills our dining room with light. Some day I hope to invite Al over for dinner so that he can bask in the sunlight as he provides his architectural guidance
Chev 2:03 PM – we’re very pleased with the suntouch system so far. No problems at all. That said we’ve only had it running for 1 year. We laid it down in 4 bathrooms and 1 kitchen and couldn’t be happier. http://www.warmyourfloor.com was by far the best value
Anonymous 5:01 PM – thanks a lot for your kind words. This process of posting is a little intimidating to go through but it makes it worthwhile when I read feedback like yours
E at 6:02 PM – I apologize but I’ve mislaid the website. I will find it tonight in my massive pile of receipts and post it here tomorrow morning
Thank you all for your support and kind words
you mentioned you got the stainless tiles online for a better price. Care to share the website? I’ve also seen stainless hex tiles that looked great.
thanks