Redecorating a Tiny Townhouse Kitchen in the Shabby Chic Style

As you know I moved into a new townhouse a few months back. I have loved my new location and my space because it is more space than I had when I began writing this blog.   I said goodbye to one bedroom, one bath and said hello to two bedrooms two baths.  Everything is great, I love the location and am enjoying the extra room. 
With that great change in my life I decided to purge a lot of the stuff I brought with me to my new address and came across a wonderful facebook page specially created to buy/sell/trade shabby chic and country french items.  On that page I sold a bunch of stuff in just a couple of weeks things that had been advertised on Craigslist, eBay and a couple of other sites for eons.  The women I have been meeting that purchased my stuff are all into the shabby chic style as most of the things they were buying  were paint projects for them.  They were posting photos of beautiful furniture pieces and home made decorative accessories that they themselves were selling.  In just a few days of reading the daily posts on that page I was hooked to this site and became part of a very stylish family and  was inspired to change the color and style scheme in my own little galley kitchen.

Now the style of my living area and dining area is something I cannot do much about right now. But the kitchen is the room  that is more flexible and smaller so I thought wouldn't be too big of an expense and take very little effort. On this blog I will share photographs of the way it looks now and as I move along in my quest to get the space infused with the colors, finishes and style I want now I will let you know how I made each change, list the resources I utilized to get the components I needed to make the change and also comment on what I was thinking, feeling and trying to express in this room along the way. 

Day one - Photos and commentary of the way my kitchen looks now.  Ugh!  Just a recopy of the kitchen I had in the last place I lived. Definitely time for  a re-do!

This is not a terribly ugly kitchen by any means. But  it is just so ....small.  And the cupboards are old thick fiberboard, the doors are ill fitting and they have tons of layers paint on them. I cannot really do anything about the cupboards unless I paint and then I have to change it back.  I plan on getting some kind of clearance from the management about my limitations. Maybe it would be okay with them to get a square routered out of the door just to add some depth and design. Still checking on that one!

The handles on the cupboards are just as average as the rest of the space I evaluated.

This is the right side of the galley kitchen. The
color scheme is the same all the way around.
It looked dark to me and was ready for change.

 



This is the right side of the kitchen. I do like the counter top..
it mimics granite and is cream and black in color.

While I was grateful for the black and white speckled "go with everything" Formica I saw that this kitchen looked too much like the one I moved away from in my last apartment.  Good thing that the cupboards were white and the walls were white also.  A perfect place to start changing over to the more feminine flair of a shabby chic kitchen re-do.

I began to evaluate what I could re-use in the way of accessories to decorate the space in the new scheme. I knew I could re-use the framed "kitchen prayer" hanging under the metal tray on the wall. I could even use the tray itself, but it is too big for the wall and affects the amount of space I have to work with in adding new accessories. I actually ended up selling the tray even as pretty as it was with the roses and black backdrop.














Take a look at the vignette, below,  from which I am drawing my inspiration.  I like the pink and the sage green and I like the flowery fabric. I like the off-white accessories and the gold tiny wooden picture frames.  A nice start?  I think so!

Take a look at  the footed dessert cups.  They are from the Sharon "Cabbage Rose" pattern. I collect

Fostoria etched crystal and found these ...being in pink I began collecting them

to accessorize with my pink china.  The  edge of the white china in the photo

is pieces from my other set of china that I love which is Pope Gosser "Rosepointe".

Look it up...you will love that pattern too. It lends itself well to the shabby chic

scheme I am trying to achieve in this kitchen project.

I love my Homer Laughlin "Marilyn" pink china. It has all the markings of a shabby chic
china set...flowers, delicate gold trim, and in pink!  How lucky was I to find this set
in Florida for $30 for service for 8, and have a relative pick it up for me and bring it
back to me in Michigan for just the gas to get to the seller's house.  Again, you can see
my Pope Gosser Rosepoint coffeepot which is very shabby chic.

I took all of the beautiful things I have collected over the years in the color scheme for my someday shabby chic kitchen project and put them together.  This way I could get a fix on what to add and what to take away.  Everything in this photo is an inspiration to me.  They are the colors I love.  And, too, notice the classic china and accessories...everything from the coffee pot to the tea cup and the wall art down to the little cast iron "chick" spoke to me.  The beautiful fabric you see, a thrift store find for pennies,  actually made me think about using this kitchen as the first place I would put all of these things together.  This is the way to begin any decorating project with a flavor that is specialized and designed to incorporate any of the things you collect that you love.  This vignette helped me to get started.

So I looked at the kitchen, careful to evaluate each corner.  I had a nice backdrop to begin with what with the white cabinets, the black and white speckled Formica counter tops and the cozy size.  If I could have changed anything else in the space I would have raised the ceiling a few feet and gotten rid of the dishwasher which I think was a huge waste of space since I never use it.  I would have also replaced the appliances with a french door refrigerator and a new gas stove. But I couldn't so I evaluated other ways to inject the style I wanted into the very boring space.

The light fixture change out was a huge no no...I could see that in the past there was a repair to the ceiling there. But I could at least change out the globe.  I saw that the cupboards were old and the doors were makeshift and not fitting right but they at least closed off what was inside them.  I saw the knobs were unattractive, the floor was boring linoleum which also could not be changed..and I saw that the backsplash was the same colorless white at the entire space.  So, I began looking for things to do to dress it all up. Here are some of the elements I incorporated to make the changes to the space.

I love the intricate delicate flowery detail
on this medallion. I also changed out the
globe with a $7.97 one I found at Lowe's.

I went to eBay to look for a ceiling medallion to use in the kitchen. However I saw that I did not want to mess with electrical work of any kind. This is an apartment dwelling after all and I also saw the repairs done around the light fixture in the past.  I came upon a medallion with no middle..meaning it could be mounted around the light fixture adhered to the ceiling with no electrical work involved at all.  With a little bit of liquid nails I was able to place the perfectly sized ring with the pretty detail and the fix was in!  The ring  only cost $10 by the time I was finished with shipping.  What a great way to add some charm to a boring ceiling for little or no cost and no messy electrical work involved.
I spotted a cheap lamp kit at Lowe's and bought it for the globe itself which is clear glass but looks like crystal and lended itself nicely to the lamp base which is white, so no electrical work involved.  The finished product..well pictures to follow so you can see the entire complete picture. I think it turned out beautiful.



 I saw this clock at Lowe's and thought the colors were perfect.  I did need to have a clock. This one works with my theme and fit perfectly over the sink.  The cost was minimal...I believe it was $9.99.

The pink shade turned out to coordinate
perfectly with the theme. I also ended up
purchasing a lovely sage green jar also
which you can see in the space also.

 Lowe's provides for these sample size jars of paint.  I chose to paint the boring white backsplash with a dash of pink to set off one of the main colors in my vignette.  For about the cost of a bag of chips I was able to paint the backsplash both behind the sink and behind the stove too.  I also used the paint to paint a shelf and a picture frame to decorate the space.  I have over half of the jar left.  I used sponge tipped paint brushes so clean up was easy...they were so inexpensive I just threw them away so I did not have to mess with cleaning the brushes when I was done. 

I purchased the pink crystal knobs
from eBay for $15 for a set
of eight.  I have not changed out
the handle knobs on the doors yet but
intend to do so.

I went on eBay to look for feet for my cabinets...an easy way to dress up otherwise lifeless and boring cabinetry.  The feet I found cost almost $15 per foot on every site I was directed to.  And...they would have had to be painted by me which I was not ready to do.  I remembered that many curtain rods have pretty finials that can sometimes be purchased to screw into the wall directly as they are independent of actual rods.  It occurred to me that this would be the answer to my dilemma of getting fee added to my cabinets.  So, again, at Lowe's I was able to find these curtain finials that were being discontinues.  Usually retailing for $22 dollars a pair, I found these white fancy ones on sale/clearance for only $5.13 a pair!  I quickly scooped up three sets of two, which provided four "feet" for my sink cabinets and one set for the set of cabinets between the stove and refrigerator.  I made them fit the space by using shims.    I think they add a custom look to the kitchen and for minimal investment. 





I could not change the floor but you can see the corner of the rug I purchased in a lovely green shade to serve as a runner down the length of the kitchen space.  It covers the floor and stops the eye from dwelling on it.  I thought of a brocade rug of some kind but have not found one.  Important:  use a rubber mat under any rug you place on a linoleum floor..otherwise it will slide around. 

So now I have arrived at near completion of the kitchen re-do:

I accessorized for the purpose of this photo with my
beloved china and my silver plate flatware and
jacquard napkins.  The domed butter dish, a recent
purchase at a thrift store is useful and used every day
but it is an attractive useful object in this space.

The pink painted backsplash was a perfect choice. I can easily repaint it if I need to.  It coordinats perfectly with my china and my "kitchen prayer" that you can see hanging there and all my other decorative accessories.

The domed cake plate, one of the Martha
Stewart items I have been wanting to get
for a long time inspired my love for
shabby chic style.  The gold framed picture
works well here..a carryover from the previous
kitchen design. And look, a silver plate butter
dish...pretty!



Notice the new clear glass globe in the ceiling which replaced
the plain white one.  A great look for pennies. The shelf on the
wall was burgundy in color...I repainted it and now I can
display the Sharon Cabbage Rose footed sherbert cups.

I made this skirt out of the fabric I found at the Salvation
Army...it was originally a shower curtain in a nice cotton duck
sort of fabric. Perfect for my use and perfectly sized. I cut it in
half and just one
straight stitch to create the rod pocket and I was done!  The
rod wasn't a big investment at $2.99.  Skirts were common
in kitchens of the past used to hide ugly piping. Here it hides the
cabinet door that didn't close and a few other sins as well.

I painted out the shelf and purchased a couple of frames
that matched one another in the sage green and pink paint
samples. What should I put in the frames though?  Thinking
of printing off a couple of quotes or recipes or floral photos.



A cute feature wall space to display a couple of the
matching luncheon plates to my prize china.  Another
intricate mini gold frames features a floral picture I
cut out of a magazine. I love intricate gold frames. This one
plays nicely off of the detail of the medallion ring
that I have on the ceiling around my light fixture.

 

I will be doing some other things to this space in the future.  I intend to dress up the plain cupboard doors. I just have to figure out how and maybe find some carpentry help with that part of the project.  I will add more pictures as I go along but I think you all get the idea.  Keeping everything in this small space neat plays a big part everyday in enjoying this kitchen.  I am forever washing dishes to keep the sink empty or shoving them in the dishwasher.  I have to shake out a rug now where before I was simply sweeping.  I love waking up in the morning and coming down for tea now, before it was just a utility room...now it is an enjoyable pretty space that perks up my mood upon entering. 

I hope this post inspires you.  Please share your comments and advice.  Have a beautiful day!