Green Victorian Kitchen Renovation | Almost Complete

Before I even start this blog post, let me preface it. 1. I know my kitchen design and colors will not be for everyone…and that is perfectly fine. 2. We own an 1886 Victorian…our goal was to RETURN it to a Victorian kitchen with modern amenities of the twenty-first century.

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I’ll be honest, I have a love/hate relationship with sharing photos of the inside of my home online. That’s why, back in 2011, when Gathered In The Kitchen first launched, I decided to share only photos of the food I made along with the recipes. I always felt a little nervous sharing the inside of my home, the layout, sharing personal items I own, etc. Like really, it’s just kind of weird. (Plus, if you saw this place on most days, you’d think differently…5 people living in a home = messy!)

However, over the years, that has changed! The internet has changed so much and now it’s the “norm” to show photos of your “every breathing moment” online, to the world, to strangers whom you’ll never meet in real life!

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If you’ve been a longtime reader (thank you!! 😘 ) you know the scenery of my photos has often changed! In 12 years time, we’ve moved and bought 4 homes in 4 different states, so that right there had brought me to sharing photos of my homes.

In 2019, we bought our 4th and current home, an 1886 Victorian in Wisconsin. One June morning, three months after moving in, we were the lucky recipients of a lightning strike, which made it catch fire…that right there created a whole new line of content to share, which included photos of the inside of our house! 😂 (if you have a few hours on your hands that you need to kill, maybe while sitting in car rider line 🤷‍♀️ , check out all of my house update posts!)

However, It’s been a looooong while since I last shared an update about the heart of our home – the kitchen. The last kitchen update I shared was Our Victorian Farmhouse Kitchen | Progress Update.

Truth be told, I have had this blog post written for 10 months, but I have hesitated to share it because of 1 item: the cow photo over my stove! 😂 You’ll see it, lol. I don’t love it, but I loved the shape of the frame. So…yeah. I’m weird! I’ve been putting off sharing my kitchen with the world all because of one silly photo! (I should be more concerned with sharing photos of unfinished work rather than a decor piece that can easily be swapped out!)

With 90% of the kitchen complete, I figured it was time to share some progress photos of our hard work. So, make a cup of Toffee, Pecan, Caramel Coffee or Guilt Free Iced Coffee, and let’s dive into the details of what’s been cooking in our kitchen renovation project!

My Wish List

I figured I should just get this out of the way so you can better understand the esthetic design of the kitchen. These were my “wish-list” aka MUST HAVE items 😂

1. green cabinets
2. marble counters
3. cast iron drainboard sink
4. cabinet faced appliances

My design inspiration all stemmed from places we’ve traveled over the years. Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, the bath houses in Hot Springs, Arkansas and Mount Vernon in Washington D.C. all played huge roles in the design process.

Before showing off the new and beautiful, let me take you on a quick photo journey of the past 5 years we’ve owned this kitchen. These first two photos are of the kitchen from the listing when it was for sale. Nothing special, but not extremely terrible.

The layout was not great, in fact, it made the kitchen feel extra small. But…the rest of the house made up for it, so it wasn’t a dealbreaker to me, plus, we’ve renovated MANY kitchens before, so what was one more? {check out these pots: Kitchen Renovation: Before & After for Under $7,000 and Our Kitchens of Houses Past}. But of course, when we toured the house, Clayton immediately said “I’d knock out this wall and push back the stairs to open up the kitchen”. Little did we know that that wish would actually come true thanks to the house being struck by lightning and catching fire.

After the fire happened and demo work began, we looked at billable items that were within our scope of abilities and removed all of the kitchen cabinets and counters ourselves. You read more about this in Update #5: Demo of the Downstairs. (p.s. I created a whole space in the walk-up attic with these oak cabinets and a new faux marble countertop…another blog post I need to write! I’m so behind! Guess you need to subscribe to my email list to make sure you see that post when it goes live!)

Once everything was removed, the construction crews came in and removed all of the walls, ceiling, electrical and plumbing.

Next came the rewiring, installing the plumbing and putting back the walls and ceiling. And then things didn’t go as planned and the job was turned back over to us… the end…and then Clayton and I went into a whole new realm of survival mode and got it done…during covid and having to be the teachers to our three kiddos, while being stuck inside a two bedroom apartment. 🥴 Fun times!

We put our entire home back together. We wired every single light fixture, every single outlet, plumbed every single toilet and faucet, painted every single wall and ceiling, installed and refinished the floors, built every single doorway, hung all of our baseboards, door trim, (still working on crown molding), put back all of the window screens……..and the list goes on and on and on and on and on. We made our home livable again, after it was deemed unlivable (not joking). It’s been a labor of love and hate all tied together!

BUT… while things don’t always go as planned, and may make your life a living hell, I can honestly say that when you do things for yourself, you hold a new kind of power. A power that proves you are capable. A power that proves you can overcome. And…best of all, you can do it the way you know is best, with no shortcuts.

There is no other person I would ever want to renovate or design a kitchen with other than my husband. He’s the master of space management (aka maximizing) and has proved this to be true in our previous kitchens as well. He’s just so good at figuring things out, thinking through all of the details and knowing what I will want, even if I don’t know I want that just yet! 🥰 He’s definitely a keeper!

In this picture above, he precisely measured out all of my kitchen items and built the kitchen (yes, he BUILT OUR CABINETS!) to the specifications of what I own (and, a little side note…I’m a food blogger, I have LOTS of kitchen items!)

Here’s that same corner all finished! (minus the crown molding and the framing around the door 🥴 …actually we did this past weekend, but to show you that picture, I’d have to clean the kitchen again, no thanks!)

The area above the stove = not complete! 😂 There’s actually a recessed range hood sitting in a box, collecting dust, waiting for us to build a custom range hood for it…but…it keeps getting moved towards the bottom of the to-do list. So, I temporarily created this solution: a shelf from a thrift store that I cut down on both sides and hung and placed the not-so-adorable cow photo on to “hide” the wiring for the range hood because the house/kitchen was featured in a TV segment called My Block: The rural Wisconsin town that became the ‘Cheese Capital of the World’

We wanted a small section with open shelving to break up the full wall of cabinets…and mainly so I could decorate – those plates and cups are seriously just for decor. 🙃🤦‍♀️

The only thing we hired out to be installed in the entire kitchen were the marble counters. We’ve cut and installed our own granite counters before, but I couldn’t find enough used marble for the job, so I opted for brand new.

I will honestly say that I understand why marble isn’t the preferred choice of countertop anymore because you do have to be really careful with them. The stone is much softer and porous than granite and other new-age materials, so…you need to be careful. The price point for marble is also not very friendly, but…I just couldn’t resist, it was worth the splurge.

I got my sink! As I mentioned before, when I began dreaming up our kitchen, there were four things that were a must: 1. green cabinets 2. marble counters 3. cast iron drainboard sink 4. cabinet face appliances.

Clayton wouldn’t let me buy an old sink because 1. it’s nearly impossible to find an old one that doesn’t have some sort of chipping or wear and tear 2. he didn’t want to refinish one because refinished cast iron is never as good as the original finish.

So when I came across this Cora 42 Inch Cast Iron Farmhouse Drainboard Sink, I knew it was the sink that would be placed in our kitchen…and we designed everything off of it. I combined two different wall mount faucet fixtures (1) and (2) to get exactly the look I wanted.

This twisted rope decorative trim piece was an accidental mistake that I love! We accidentally measured for the pantry doors just a tad off…like less than 1/2″, not bad for an entire kitchen renovation by self-taught DIYers. So there was a gap between the pantry and the top drawer. Clayton wanted to fix it properly…but I got tired of waiting so I bought a piece of decorative trim, painted it to match the cabinets and wood glued it into place. It took a little sanding, but it fits perfect and looks so pretty. It gives our very “boyish” straight line shaker cabinets just a touch of femininity that I LOVE!!!

Choosing the backsplash was a bit of a nail biting experience. I had installed matte black subway tile with black grout in the kid’s bathroom and I 2 million % loved it. It is literally gorgeous. Because many of the features in that bathroom are similar to the kitchen (marble counters, etc) we boldly decided to install the same tile as the kitchen backsplash. I will honestly say I was so set on the decision and then so nervous. But once we started installing it, I fell in love with it! —> here’s the bottom line, I don’t want my kitchen to look like everyone else’s kitchen. I want bold colors. So, I just had to be brave and do it!

We chose to do a herringbone pattern over the stove and installed a matching pot filler. This is a must in my houses! We’ve installed them before and they just make life so much easier…especially when you cook a lot like I do!

I bought this beautiful wooden and marble top island at BIG LOTS!! Of all places! OMG, I love it! It fits perfectly in the kitchen! It has two drawers (yay to hiding papers when guests come over or I need to snap photos! 😂 ) and the bottom is an open, airy shelf which is perfect. If it was solid, it would be too boxy and congested looking in the kitchen. It’s all about the visuals! I mounted brass towel rods on the back to hang my towels on when I’m filming cooking segments.

We maximized every inch of the kitchen and built cabinets to the top of the ceilings (again, we still need to add the crown molding), but I love having so much storage space! The kitchen is by far the smallest room in our house. The other rooms are gigantic in comparison…but that’s because back in the 1800s the entire family wasn’t in the kitchen helping cook or socializing! Also, mothers weren’t looking to keep eyes on their kids at all moments of the day.

The “cabinet” to the left of our dog, with the big handle at the top = dishwasher. The two stacked drawers behind the dog = my Sub Zero freezer drawers. I literally freeze nothing so I didn’t want wasted space in my kitchen. The bottom drawer = ice. The top drawer = ice cream 😂 . The large door to the right of those = column JennAir refrigerator. (you can see the all of our appliances here). (and yes, we still need to put the kick plate up on the freezer and refrigerator…sometimes little details are the hardest to finish!)

In this photo above, the refrigerator is on the left and the pantry and pantry drawers is on the right. It’s always fun when you find vintage Pyrex bakeware that matches your cabinet color! lol

Inside the pantry, I installed lighting on each shelf – not totally necessary, but a really nice feature. That’s the thing with DIY, if you’re able to do things yourself, you can keep adding extra, amazing details for a fraction of the price that a contractor will charge you! I bought these lights at IKEA and they were really easy to install…there’s one light switch inside the pantry and it turns them all on!

The pantry is also home to our Breville microwave/convection oven/air fryer (not pictured here, this was a temporary microwave while we were rebuilding). Although I didn’t specify this as a must-have feature, but I whole-heartedly didn’t want the microwave sitting on the counter. It just wouldn’t have been something sitting on the counter back in the 1880s! So, we purposely built the bottom pantry shelf to house a microwave of many sizes.

I’ve added lots of decor touches that I’ve either hand made or bought at antique stores. I love tying in old with new and giving things a really homey feel.

In this photo, we still have crown molding to hang, build the slide in garbage and recycling cabinet under the sink (the fabric is just a temporary solution that I came up with quickly before filming a cooking TV segment for NBC in the Wausau, Wisconsin area 😂 ). However, I did cut and install the three piece baseboards…but again, I’d have to clean to take new photos, no thanks! Just use your imagination for now 😉

On the wall between the kitchen and dining room, I repurposed an old headboard and turned it into a chalkboard…which apparently I still need to write a blog post tutorial for! In the meantime, you can read How to Paint A Chalkboard Backsplash Wall which I did over the stove before we installed the black subway tile.

And yes, you see a steel beam halfway covered in between the dining room and living room 🧐 …that’s one of our next big projects to tackle…I’ll give you a little teaser: we bought vintage stained glass windows that will be used in that renovation!!! AHHHHH!!!! I’m so excited! I love adding gorgeous, unique features to our home…just like this brass door plate and glass door knob (which would have totally been in our house originally…which actually they are upstairs still!)

Circling back to that wall and staircase that entered into the kitchen…it did it get its makeover! If you were to open that glass door (the photo below was before we hung the door), there is the mudroom. This room also got a HUGE overhaul!! While this photo is clearly an in-process shot, you can see more about the mudroom makeover here. **needless to say, we’ve fully renovated and redesigned (for the better) every single room in this house! It’s been a labor of love!

And lastly, the coffee bar area. This was able to be created because we moved the wall and steps. Remember the listing photos? You may need to scroll back up to reference them. The doorway used to come to the end of now half-wall coffee bar. We opened up the opening between the kitchen and the sunroom and removed the wall that used to be on the right side of the door to give the kitchen more open space. We also had the steps moved towards the mudroom. Actually, you can see all of it in this house update post.

My Favorite Features

• cabinet face appliances – this creates such a timeless and beautiful cohesive look. I personally don’t love the look of metal or plain colored appliance doors … especially not in an 1886 Victorian home!
• a baking sheet drawer – custom built to house way too many baking sheets and muffin pans! woot! my husband is the best!
• pull out/slide out/ nesting appliance racks
• all of the brushed gold hardware – I am a girl who loves gold!
• and the real marble counters! I spent a fortune on them, but it was worth every penny because they are gorgeous and a type of material that would have been used back in 1886!
• that we maximized every square inch of the kitchen! I can take zero credit for that…that was all my talented degreed engineer husband! Honestly, even with my hoarding of kitchen items, the kitchen is plenty big!

Video Tour

I wanted to show you a video tour first so you can see the kitchen as a whole. After the video, I’ll show you close up photos and spill all of the details!

The End! 😂

OK, this blog post is getting way too long! … and I have hardly touched on any of the actual process photos/projects. I will get busy writing those posts and come back and update this post with all of the projects because I simply love teaching people how to do things themselves!! If you’d like, subscribe to my email list so you can receive those updates to your inbox when I publish them!

Thanks so much for reading this super long post!! If you loved this kitchen renovation…check out the FULL kitchen renovation we did at our last house in North Carolina! We must be addicted to our own pain, sweat and tears!! 😂