Tellico Village Lake House
Kitchen Renovation
In our previous blog post, we began sharing our behind-the-scenes look at a recent total-home renovation for one of our clients, a soon-to-be-retiring couple that relocated to East Tennessee from California. Like a growing number of West Coast transplants, they were drawn to this region for its relatively affordable real estate. Namely, they were able to purchase a lot more house for their money — a residence on Tellico Lake, no less — when they moved here in 2021.
As we mentioned earlier, in our post detailing the work we did on the powder room, this home benefitted from an awesome location. (In the current real estate market, there’s not a lot of inventory, but there are still some amazing lakefront houses to be discovered.) However, from an interior-design standpoint, this home had not aged well in its 22 years. It needed some TLC, and the kitchen represented yet another opportunity for us to take years off its appearance.
After consulting with the owners, we decided that this was not the time for an in-depth kitchen overhaul. Instead, we focused on renovation elements that could tide us over for a few years and in the process allow us to immediately allocate resources for the rest of the house.
That’s another way clients benefit from working with Rowan Hall Interiors. Our team of East Tennessee interior designers is committed to working within their budgetary limits while helping them get the most out of each dollar spent. In the end, our approach to this kitchen update made a lot of financial sense; we weren’t going to spend loads of money on things that weren’t going to pay off right now.
For example, if we had decided to replace the granite surfaces in that kitchen, the cost would have been substantial. Granite was used for both the backsplash and the countertops, so it would have required a whole lot of effort (and expense) to get it all out of there. We’ll replace it at some point in the future, but for this phase, we were able to find other ways to tone the kitchen down dramatically and makes it not as hideous.
What we did with the cabinetry was pretty interesting. The original cabinets had a lot of gobbledygook on them, like carved fruit and heavy, obnoxious moldings. One of the first things we did was consult with our carpenter to see if those elements could be removed without affecting the integrity of the cabinets. He gave us the go-ahead, which was great, because the cabinets themselves were actually in really good shape. It took some strong carpentry skills, but we were able to replace the fruit moldings — as well as a lot of really heavy, decorative corbels — with something much simpler.
Another thing we did was lighten up this kitchen a lot by painting the basic brown wood cabinetry with a shade of white — White Dove from Benjamin Moore. We hired our friends at McClain’s Painting Service to transform the outdated brown to white. We were able to brighten it up quite a bit so that the black wasn’t as overwhelming.
Finally, we replaced all the existing hardware, filled the holes and installed new hardware. Also, one of the cabinets featured a glass insert, which didn’t make sense for our homeowners. We were able to replace that particular door and paint it to match the rest. These are further examples of how small modifications can go a long way toward making big impressions.
Overall, we wound up giving the kitchen a clean, fresh, new appearance and made it look amazing. The space also ties in well with the new engineered hardwood floors throughout the house, which we mentioned in our powder room post.
