Before & After: The Kitchen Change I Never Anticipated Loving So Much

About two years ago—right around the time I was pregnant with my third kid—it became painfully clear that we had outgrown our little two-bedroom house (technically a three-bedroom, but nobody was willing to sleep in a basement prone to flooding). We needed more space. I was hoping for a turnkey home (did I mention the whole “pregnant with my third kid” thing?), but it didn’t take us long to realize that if we wanted more bang for our buck, we’d have to tackle a fixer-upper. So, that’s exactly what we did.

Renovating a home, I quickly learned, is a lot like working through the five stages of grief. First comes denial (this will be easy and probably not even that expensive!). Then anger (OMG, why is everything taking so long?). Next, bargaining (what if we just skipped countertops all together and prepared our food on the floor?). After that, depression (so much dust, so many delays). And finally—sweet, hard-won acceptance.

In short: It’s a journey. And one of the toughest parts, at least for me, was making big (often costly!) decisions without really knowing how things would turn out.

Our kitchen, for example, came with a lot of those decisions. The setup that came with the house was dark, dingy and in the basement, something I knew wouldn’t work for us since we spend the vast majority of our time as a family in the kitchen. (You can kind of see what the kitchen looked like in the image above which was taken as we started demo-ing.) So, we moved it up to the main floor, and a top priority for me was storage. In our old kitchen, we had a single cupboard crammed with pantry items that was constantly overflowing. I wanted space for food (I dreamed of a Costco membership), the kids’ plates, so many water bottles, lots of baking supplies and everything else. Luckily, the new layout had room for a full wall of cupboards and drawers, so storage wasn’t going to be an issue.

But would a whole wall of cabinetry make the kitchen feel cramped? Probably. The solution was to break it up with a coffee bar between the fridge and pantry. As a coffee lover who is married to a Brit who drinks at least three cups of tea a day, I was thrilled with this idea. But one design choice gave me pause…

Open shelving.

I’d always heard they’re dust magnets, but honestly, my bigger fear was that they’d require constant styling to look nice—and keeping things picture-perfect isn’t exactly my strong suit. (Also: three kids.) Plus, hadn’t I read somewhere (ahem, not here) that open shelves were so outdated?

Still, our architect and contractor couldn’t figure out another way to make the layout work, so I crossed my fingers and went for it.

Nearly a year later, I can honestly say that I love our kitchen—especially all of the storage and the open shelf. It brings lightness and intrigue to what could’ve been an overwhelming wall of gray cabinetry (we opted for Repose Gray by Sherwin-Williams, in case you’re curious). We matched the shelf to the floor which we had lightened to a natural oak and also installed lighting underneath the shelf (this has proven to be especially useful when measuring out coffee in the early hours of the morning).

Because we use the shelf for everyday items like mugs (ours are from Ikea and the perfect size for wrapping your hands around, IMO) and water glasses (also Ikea—surprisingly sturdy), it means they never actually have time to collect dust.

We also mirrored the shelving on the opposite wall above the sink. While the coffee bar shelf was form and function, the over-the-sink option was purely for symmetry and decorative reasons.

At first, I imagined filling that space with curated items—an oversized clock, a tall vase, a framed food print—but in the end, I just styled it with things we already had around the house. And honestly? I think it turned out pretty great.

In my experience, renovations are an exercise in faith. I was hesitant to incorporate open shelving into our new kitchen, unsure how it would fit into our space and our lives. But as it turns out, what I once thought would be a headache is now my favorite part of the room. Go figure.