Post 8: Jumping on the Two Tone Band Wagon

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Wish list

When Debby (my designer) and I were planning the layout of my new kitchen, I knew I couldn’t really change the existing footprint too much. Although small, the kitchen was pretty functional in terms of the “kitchen triangle”(sink, stove, fridge placement). I did have several wish list items: more drawers, a place to store my instant pot, a wine fridge in my island, a pantry with storage, extend the height of my cabinets by removing the bulkhead, and add some drawer organization for cutlery and other utensils, and worked with Debby on floor plan. We decided to extend my counters and include a pull-out garbage bin, add a coffee bar with pantry storage to my back wall, add a cabinet to move the fridge away from the wall, and remove the bulkhead to give me taller cabinets.

A “blue tie” affair

I had always liked the look of my white cabinets, but something felt like it was missing. I found some pictures of two toned cabinets on Pinterest, talked to a friend who had “tuxedo” white and grey cabinets, and shifted my thinking from all-white to white and blue. Everyone who knows me, knows of my love of navy blue. My living room couch and powder room wallpaper were already navy and in the fall, I brought this love outside and replaced both my front and garage doors with navy blue doors. Debby and I worked through some designs with two tone cabinets and I decided on Hale Navy (Benjamin Moore) lower cabinets, and Chantilly Lace (Benjamin Moore) upper cabinets. The question was “what to do with the pantry wall”? I toyed with all-blue, but in my small space that seemed risky. In the end, I decided to go with all-white clean look for the pantry.

Send in the white knights

My cabinets are from White Knight Kitchens and the design is Utica Shaker. The day the truck arrived with my cabinet order, I was convinced there was no way this puzzle could become a kitchen. There were hundreds of wood pieces. Within four-days, my cabinets were fully installed, and I couldn’t believe the transformation!

Bye, bye bulkhead

The crown moulding that the White Knight Team installed in place of the bulkhead is one of my favourite elements of my new kitchen. It made a huge style difference and upped the luxury factor. I was a little, ok a lot, worried, as I knew there was a pipe behind the space. My neighbour had warned me that it might not be possible to remove bulkhead, but Debby assured me it could be done. When demo started, the bulkhead was removed, and the pipe was much wider than I imagined. I wasn’t sure how they would cover this up, but they certainly did!

Two tone dream

I love my new cabinets, the blue lowers really amp up the wow factor and make my kitchen a little more unique. I have so much storage now, that I don’t even know what to put in some of the cabinets 🙂 The “coffee bar” has really filled in the existing space that I couldn’t use before.

I struggled with what to put in my pantry glass cabinets though. Still not 100% on the items I have in place now, but I was going for a clean look, so I started with all white and glass and it was a bit boring, so I added some blue items to tie in with the other cabinets. I also moved the floor vent come out the kick plate under my garbage pull-out cabinet. I am still on the fence on this, but it allowed me not to have to have the vent in front of my patio door, where it originally was.

Rookie Tip: Your cabinets represent one of the largest line items in your budget. You are going to have them for many years to come. Make sure your cabinet design matches your lifestyle. Also be careful when deciding to follow trends. The colour green is having a major moment in kitchen cabinet designs this year, as is stained wood, and a more minimalistic style (handless and/or frameless) all of which I did not want. When I decided on the navy blue base cabinets, I thought it might be a bit of a risk long-term, but I also felt it gave me the traditional look I wanted, without being boring. I’ll let you know if a few years (ideally many years) from now if this decision pans out. 🙂

Powder room refresh

I added the navy and white wallpaper and floating shelves a few years ago. The walls were previously the pinkish colour you can see in the second photo below. When I decided to replace all the floors throughout my entire first floor, including my powder room, it was the perfect opportunity to update the vanity cabinet, countertop, and sink. I went with a navy vanity, in Hale Navy, the same colour as my kitchen cabinets. I love the look of the navy cabinet against the white wallpaper.