Not Your Average ~Gorgeous~ Vintage Farmhouse Kitchen

The kitchen is the heart of the home these days, but that wasn’t true when this house was built. In the 1800’s, there wouldn’t have been a proper kitchen or even plumbing in this house. Folks likely cooked on a heating stove in the colder months and outside in the summer months. At the turn of the century when this space was added on, the room likely had just a cooking stove with a cabinet for food prep and a table to eat at. The before photos of the kitchen represent a remodeled kitchen probably around 1945 or so.

Obstacles

The cabinets were in rough shape, so we had to remove them, but we were able to save a couple upper cabinets for the garage. We would have loved to refinish the floors, but we had to pull the flooring up to shore up the flooring system and replace some rotted areas from a leaking sink long ago.

Modernizing a kitchen while keeping the charm of an old house was the task. And doing that while having to remove almost everything in the space, except the original windows. So, we designed the entire room around these gorgeous old windows. And we used 80% salvaged materials to keep it timeless.

Things Found

We tried to save everything that we could. After removing the flooring, the floor joists still look like tree logs and buried in the dirt were broken dishes, glasses and bricks. They probably thought this was a way to dispose of garbage, but we thought they were all treasures. Here are a few of them.

We even found a letter written on New Year’s Day in 1953 from a grandmother in Glens Falls to her granddaughter, a 9-year girl who lived in the house. Allie was able to track down the now 79-year-old woman and she was delighted that we found the letter. She emailed saying she loved letter writing and had a collection of letters from her other grandmother, but non from this one. So of course, we mailed this priceless letter back to her.

In removing the flooring, we noticed writing on the back of one board. Francis Dean March 4, 1904. Allie found Francis on a census record living around the corner on Middleline rd. He would’ve been 16 years old in 1904!

Putting it back together

After Edward worked tirelessly on the flooring structure and installing the new wide plank pine floors that are now throughout the whole first floor, we started rebuilding the kitchen.

We lucked out in finding gently used schluter cabinets being taken out for a remodel of a house in the area. The beadboard panels caught Allie’s eye and magically, we figured out how to make them fit this space, without blocking the windows. Edward modified all but 3 of the cabinets. Have I mentioned he’s amazing!?! Once installed, Allie took on the task of painting everything so that the cabinets looked hand painted in a deep green color.

We chose these gorgeous wood countertops and finished them with Waterlox tung oil and sealer. So they are food safe, but should not be used as a cutting board!

One of our early salvage purchases were these four corbels. Allie stripped off the paint and finished them. They fit perfectly on the island!

The kitchen hood was also taken from another kitchen remodel and Allie painted it to match the cabinets.

We found a piece a quartz for the baking station. And reused the flooring we had saved for the bench seat.

These pantry doors were reused from the former pantry and closet doors.

This cabinet was taken out of a butler’s pantry in another old house. Allie added the wallpaper behind for a pop of color.

We made custom curtains from grain sacks with cafe curtain arms for underneath the kitchen cabinet.

Edward built the housing for the refrigerator.

We found this plate rack custom made from a carpenter on Etsy. We had planned to make our own, but with all the other work happening, we were happy to leave this one to someone else!

Finished!

We finally finished! Here’s all the gorgeous photos taken by Susan Blackburn Photography.