Whoo-Hoo, the big reveal of the kitchen at the ‘Little Brick Cottage’ is here! And what a change it is from when we bought this antique house in December of last year.

I think the best way to help you see this amazing transformation is to show you side by side before and after pictures.

One of the sweetest surprises in this reno, was finding the original oak plank floor hiding under layers of vinyl flooring.

To get the kitchen finished to this point we did a lot of work. The old kitchen was in tough condition and had a lousy floor plan. There was a ton of wasted space and a terrible work triangle. (Oops the jar lights over the peninsula are missing in this after pic.)

To be able to create space for a good work triangle, between the stove, sink and fridge, we had to remove this side door. It just wasn’t needed and gave us the wall space we needed to create a new space for the sink and dishwasher.

The door was replaced with a window, and because the cottage is brick, there are incredibly thick walls, which provided a super deep window sill at the sink.

The sink used to be located…

…here, tucked in the corner. But now the stove is here with just enough counter space on each side. We gained a little space on this wall length to fit the counters on each side when, during the bathroom reno, we removed and rebuilt this back wall, and placed the bathroom door just a little farther to the right.

I’m sorry to say that I don’t have a pic of where the stove was originally, but at the top of this page in the before, you can just barely make out the stove on the left. Now that space is for the:

…fridge. The fridge was originally located over where we now put the new sink.

We had just enough space here for the fridge to fit, with a ‘case’ around it to cover up the fridge sides, (one of my pet peeves in a kitchen) and install a narrow cabinet. It’s helpful to have a spot to set fridge items as they’re being loaded and unloaded, even if that spot is only 9” wide.

Now there’s a great work triangle in this kitchen. The sink (and dw) are to your right, the stove (and microwave) are to your left and the fridge is ahead toward your left.

Beyond is the new peninsula we created from stock cabinets. (dang, again, the jar lamps aren’t in the pic…) The windows in the whole cottage needed to be replaced, so we could have opted to install shorter windows in the kitchen to have a long wall for cabinets, but I felt that would be doing a ‘dis-service’ to the integrity of the antique house.

Instead we opted to maintain the original size of the windows for their replacements and it still gave me just enough room for a peninsula between them with a small overhang on the counter, allowing space for stools.

We dressed up the plain unfinished backs of the cabinets with beadboard, which I painted white to match the cabinets. (Finally, here’s a pic of those cute DIY jar lamps I made over the peninsula.)

This peninsula is a gathering spot in the kitchen, and offers a good work surface as well.

The coziness of sitting at a stool here with the South sun steaming in those low long windows on a cold winter morning sounds so appealing to me.

Here are the elements that make up the kitchen. I purposely worked hard to maintain the vintage farmhouse style integrity of this space, on a budget, and finding those old oak plank floors under it all totally confirmed this vision.

I’m so pleased with the kitchen’s results, it really did turn out to fit in with the charming style of the entire ‘Little Brick Cottage’.

Yay! I’ve been featured here:

and here:

and here:

and here:

and here:

I’m linking up at these great parties: