Gray Cabinets Update a Texas Kitchen
Julie Shannon knew she wanted a more transitional-style kitchen when she moved into her Austin, Texas, home a few years ago. The builder-grade cabinets, always-dirty-looking tile floors and granite tile counters weren’t her cup of tea. But she couldn’t decide what she wanted the kitchen to look like. Instead of rushing into a remodel, she focused first on other projects in her home to give her time to decide and save money.
She installed hardwood floors the first year to replace the tiles in the kitchen and carpet elsewhere in the home. The next year she added stainless steel appliances. By the third year, she had found a kitchen photo that made her heart sing. The gray cabinets with a glossy finish paired with white countertops in the photo were exactly what she wanted. She just needed someone to make it happen. She found T. Newland Finishes through a search on Houzz for cabinet refinishers in her area and set out to find all the materials and undo what previous homeowners had done.
BEFORE: The home was built in 1999 and was in relatively good shape. Shannon just wanted to make it more her style. “Nobody walked in and said, ‘That’s the ugliest kitchen I’ve ever seen,’ but I have just never been a fan of oak cabinetry,” she says. Within the first month of moving into the home, Shannon added new cabinet hardware, seen here, where none existed before. “That’s just a big pet peeve of mine,” she says. “I had to have cabinet hardware. It just looked too generic.” Apart from that she did little else until undertaking the full makeover.
AFTER: She researched materials for about four months, gathering images from Houzz and elsewhere and then trying to find local places that carried them so she could see the materials in person.
Backsplash tile: glass, Encore Ceramics
She spent a lot of time looking at paint swatches of different grays, finally settling on Gauntlet Gray by Sherwin-Williams for its warmth and compatibility with the hardwood floor color. In fact, choosing the gray shade was the last thing she did.
She first installed every surface material, from the Caesarstone countertops (in London Gray) to the hand-glazed glass backsplash tiles (in silver) to the walnut bar countertop and granite composition sink. “That gray color was the best that went with all the materials I chose,” she says.
Sanding and refinishing the cabinets took about two weeks, with Thomas Newland setting up a painting shop in Shannon’s garage.
Newland worked with a cabinetmaker to create the custom cabinet surrounding the refrigerator. Shannon had a larger cabinet put above the fridge to make up for lost cabinet space when she installed a new wine fridge to the right of the sink.
BEFORE: The Colorado stone on the front of the bar felt out of place to Shannon.
AFTER: The new grayish white birch tile helps tie all the updates together. Shannon wanted the bar to feel like it was more a part of the living room than the kitchen, so she avoided continuing the Ceasarstone countertop there and opted for a walnut counter in an oiled finish.
Because the kitchen was part of a project that included redoing the fireplace in the living room and adding a built-in cabinet, and because it came together piecemeal over several years, the overall cost of the project is somewhat difficult to determine. Shannon estimates that just the kitchen portion cost around $30,000, including labor, appliances and flooring. Here’s the budget breakdown:
Appliances: $3,500
Cabinet refinishing: $7,200, including labor
New custom refrigerator cabinet: $2,000, including labor
Caesarstone countertops: $5,400, including labor
Walnut bar top: $3,500, including installation, by DeVos Custom Woodworking
Backsplash: $2,000, including materials and labor
Bar-front stone: $2,700, including demolition, installation and materials, with white birch from Realstone Systems
Undercabinet LED strip lighting: $275 for materials
Pendant lighting: $500
Lighting installation: $1,200
Sink and Hansgrohe faucet: $900
Wine fridge: $650
Cabinet hardware: $260, from Ikea
Total: $30,085
Additional costs:
Hardwood floors: $10,000 for entire house
Fireplace redo and cabinet in great room: $6,400
More: DIY Spirit and $8,700 Transform a Townhouse Kitchen
