Timeless Kitchen Makeover on a Budget - Sincerely, Marie Designs (2024)

This post is in partnership with The Builder Depot, eFaucets and Birch Lane but all thoughts are my own.

I can’t believe today has finally arrived. I have felt like a marathon runner for months and months, just hoping for a sprint kinda renovation. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about home renovations it’s that they’re never over soon enough! I say marathon because when you’re not hiring work out and you’re working within a small budget, time is your best friend. It’s been two years since we bought this fixer-upper of ours and I can’t believe how far we’ve come in such a short time. You can look at all the before photos here. My heart has really been longing for simple these days. I’ve found that I’m moving away from heavily decorated spaces and more towards simple, timeless spaces. Our home is a four-sided brick colonial and it has a very traditional look and feelthat I adore. My goal for our kitchen was to create a classic and elegant space.

It’s no secret that when we purchased our home it was in major need of some love, the unconditional kind. Imagine everything in a home being broken and you’d nail our colonial on the head! We fell in love with the neighborhood and knew that this old place deserved a new life. Let’s take a look at what the kitchen looked like the first day we stepped inside in to start working.

Aside from the mess, there were eight cabinet doors missing in total. Only one eye of the stove worked and the smell was enough to make you run for the hills!

It’s been almost two years and lots of sleepless nights, backaches and a few tears but here’s where we are today!

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The cabinets are solid wood so we opted to keep them, order new doors and paint them. We stripped the wallpaper,installed board and batten and painted all the trim. We planked the ceiling and changed out the light fixtures.

We installed butcher block counter topsand they add such a warmth to the space that I really love. They’re also true to the colonial style. You can read about the countertops and how we sealed them here.

We painted the cabinets and replaced all the hardware. I had originallyused rubbed oil bronze hardware, which looked fine but my heart stilled dreamed of brass. A year and a half later I finally swapped it out for these beautiful brasspulls and knobs.

We took the stove top out of the island and replaced it with a free standing range that went in place of the old refrigerator. Josh built a custom hood above it and a small shelf for cookbooks and spices to cap the stove off. You can see that full tutorial here.

We left the existing dishwasher and opted to paint it instead of replacing it. You can read the how-to for that here. We installed a traditional apron sink with a classic Kingston brass bridged faucet from eFaucets. Friends, it’s even prettier in person! I’m a sucker for brass and after installing a similar faucet by Kingston in our powder room makeover I knew it would be the perfect choice for the kitchen. It’s got women weight to it and it’s unlacqured, so the finish will only get prettier over time.

One of my favorite touches in our kitchen is the Carrara marble backsplash from The Builder Depot. It’s a honed subway tile that measures 4″x8″, which is larger than the size of a traditional subway tile. I really couldn’t be any more obsessed! I love that it has a honed finish. It’s such an understated elegance that will remain timeless. The Builder Depot is local to us but they do have other locations and they ship all over the country. They’re such a joy to work with and their tile options are top quality.

I decided to leave this side of the cabinetry open for displaying some of my favorite dishes and vintage copper. We decided to transform the desk area that we never once used into a built-in shelf to house the microwave and my cookbooks. It provides more storage space and functions much better now.

The Breakfast Nook

Our breakfast nook is one of the sunniest rooms in our home. I love sitting down in the afternoon with a cup of coffee while the sun streams in. One of my favorite things that we added to the breakfast nook is these gorgeous upholstered chairs from Birch Lane. It was love at first sight! I didn’t want to replace all of my vintage saddle-back Windsor chairs so I ordered just two of the Arichat chairs and I think they compliment the space beautifully. I love the light linen look and they’re actually pretty easy to keep clean. We haven’t had any issues of staining so far and our rambunctious four-year-old son has put them to the test.

I added an accent pillow to each armchair covered in one of my favorite Waverly fabrics. I’m really surprised that I gravitated towards red but decided to just go with it and I love the pop of color that it’s added.

We installed two shelves to house some of my favorite vintage copper that I’ve collected over the years along with some other favorite dishes of mine. The baskets store our table linens.

I’m really smitten over the weathered urn planters that I recently ordered. They’re also from Birch Lane and come in a 3 piece set. They add great texture to the breakfast nook and display my weekly grocery store blooms perfectly!

I don’t think that I could be any more relieved or pleased. There’s really something about having a room complete that brings so much joy to my little heart. It’s been a long two years in some aspects but we survived it and learned so much through the process. Plans changed more than once and some projects didn’t happen as soon as I would have hoped but all that is water under the bridge now. I’m looking forward to enjoying my fresh new kitchen into the holidays. I can just smell the delicious Christmas cookies now! I’ll be sharing a full before and after of our home before the end of the year. It’s going to be fun to look back at all we’ve been up to the last two years. I hope you’ll join me!

A big thank you is owed to the amazing companies that helped make this makeover possible. Thank you so much, The Builder Depot, eFaucets and Birch Lane! I’m so grateful for your kindness and amazing customer service.