Lights! Cabinets! Action!
/The kitchen is FINALLY coming together with the addition of things that actually turn the empty room it into a kitchen. The range is in, the cabinets are taking shape, and lights are installed. Pinch me!
Full disclosure, this activity actually happened months ago. I took a long break during the summer and then I’ve been slowly catching up. Of course, I want to keep sharing with you instead of skipping everything that happened the past few months, so here I am! We’re time traveling, folks!
If you recall, I ordered kitchen cabinets in the springtime and they never showed up - with no real warning. I had to start over and find a new cabinet manufacturer that would make inset-style cabinets. Luckily, I found a local craftsperson that had a great price and good reviews.
They started the installation by bringing just the cabinet boxes. All of the drawers, doors, hardware, etc. would be installed on site.
A few days later, they placed and installed all of the boxes. It looked like a real kitchen! They even put the sink in its home.
We have tall cabinets for the fridge and pantry seen above, and then more cabinets on the other wall for pantry and small appliance storage. There is no shortage of places to put things! Seen above, they hadn’t installed the tops of the cabinets yet.
Hellooooo range and range hood! The base cabinets are all drawers so we’ll have super easy access to all of the things. We opted to do no upper wall cabinets, so I have work to do in order to find just the right artwork to put in that space.
Here’s the cabinet layout for your reference. The gap by the door is where an antique table will go, so it won’t look as funny as it does in that rendering.
I’ll be sure to do a full cabinet layout tour (like I did of our old kitchen) once everything is installed. Stay tuned!
My house is free of can lights thus far, and I don’t plan on ever adding any. Instead of recessed lighting, I installed three pendants down the center of the room, then seven sconces above the work surfaces. The goal is to create soft, diffused light rather than the harsh and direct light of cans.
I realize this is unconventional as recessed lights are expected nowadays, but I stand by it! I’ll do a full lighting plan blog post once everything is wrapped up so you can see the whole situation - lights, outlets, switches, etc.
I ordered the lighting a full year ago from Rejuvenation. Hot Tip: I repackaged each of the components for easy storage, then labeled the boxes so I knew which box had what in it. You can see above that the box had three sconce shades, seven sconce fixtures, and zero components for the pendants. This made for very easy unboxing!
And here’s a sneak preview! I loooove how soft and diffused the light is from each of the fixtures. I stand by my decision to skip recessed lighting.
Interested in the same lighting? These are the sconces and these are the pendants. Each are customizable to your own specs and come in different colors, so mix and match as you please. I went with unlaquered brass for the sconces and matte black for the pendants because i’m a true fan of mixed metals.
