Tired of your 80’s kitchen? How to Remodel Your Kitchen Successfully

Are you tired of your 80’s kitchen? So many people are, and we love working with clients to update these spaces. We were recently engaged by a client to remodel her 80’s kitchen in Oklahoma. We had done a couple of projects for her previously and she enjoyed working with us so decided to work with us on this larger project at a distance. Using technology and a bit of travel makes it easy for us to work on projects across the country.

Identifying Needs

If you are tired of your 80’s kitchen, look around and write down a list of the things you dislike most. It is a great way to start understanding what a remodel might involve.

The first step in any kitchen remodel project is to determine the pain points for our clients. Not only were they tired of the look and deary finishes in the kitchen there were 3 entries from other parts of the home that made maximizing storage difficult. In addition, the angled island limited both the seating and the available storage at the island.

After exploring which door to omit from the plan we settled on eliminating the door to the mudroom. The view from the dining table into the mudroom was unattractive and there was another path from the mudroom into the kitchen.

We straightened out the island and added a larger 48” refrigerator. In addition, we added a coffee and breakfast bar out of the main work triangle at the end of the dining table.

If you are tired of your 80’s kitchen, look around and write down a list of the things you dislike most. It is a great way to start understanding what a remodel might involve.

 

Selecting Finishes

While our client was tired of all oak cabinetry, she still is a traditionalist at heart and the warmth of wood was appealing to her. She shared many images she had found on Instagram and Pinterest of kitchens with mixed finishes. At LiLu we are no strangers to the finish mix so we embraced the idea.  See the kitchen in Posh Playhouse 2.0 to see a completed project with mixed finishes.

Based on inspiration images we developed two material schemes one based on blue and one based on sage greens and lavenders. We included fabrics and leathers to be used in the adjacent family room so our client could fully envision the space and how patterns would come into play in furniture pieces.

We introduced not only painted and stained cabinetry but inserts of metal mesh and beautiful natural quartzites to the palette.

In the end, the sage green palette won, and we added a touch of glamour to the media center in the family room with a mother-of-pearl wallcovering in sage green.

Are finishes part of the reason you are tired of your 80’s kitchen? If so a great way to start to know what would really appeal to you is to find images of kitchens, you love and identify what you love about them. Using Pinterest or a file on Instagram is a great way to save them and share them with a designer.

 

Renderings

 Once we had the finishes selected, the next big decision is what proportion of painted to stained cabinetry and since we had two different colors for painted cabinetry, how would those be used?

We created some quick renderings to help us all envision the kitchen with more or less stained cabinets and to understand how vertical elements should be finished.

The options could be endless, so we carefully curated the best options and shared those as renderings.

Plumbing, Lighting and Hardware Selections

 Once the big aesthetic and storage decisions are made the details of which sink, faucet, lighting and hardware must be made.

We provided a few options with a fresh traditional look for our client to choose from. All included faucets with traditional but cleaned-up detailing. Traditional pendants with fresh shapes and materials were also selected and hardware with some detail but not so fussy as to cause a maintenance headache

Keep an eye on the blog for a project reveal for this summer!

If you are tired of your 80’s kitchen, give the LiLu team a call! We love to work on kitchen remodels in Minneapolis and across the country!