Grey and White Kitchen Makeover
If you’re looking to give your kitchen a facelift and some style, grey and white are the colors to choose! They’re clean and contemporary and take well to whatever other colors you love to decorate with. Our guest today shared her breakfast nook with us awhile back, and now she’s here to share the rest of her gorgeous grey and white kitchen makeover:
Scroll down to learn more about Deme’s kitchen.
When you’re choosing a grey for the kitchen, just about anything goes! You choose what you love, based on your style and the lighting and design of your space.
You can go lighter like Mom and Her Drill shared here:
Or a little bit darker like Shanty 2 Chic’s gorgeous kitchen:
Or even to charcoal like this gorgeous kitchen (Style At Home via DecorPad).
But no matter what shade you choose, the updates can take your kitchen from blah to BEAUTIFUL! See how Deme painted and updated her kitchen to end up with a gorgeous grey and white kitchen.
Grey and White Kitchen Makeover
by Deme of House For Five
Hey there! I’m Deme and I’m so excited to be hanging out at Remodelaholic today! I blog over at House For Five where we share bits of our life as a family of five, and our learn-as-we-go adventures in DIY home improvement. After renting 5 homes in 6 years, we’re so thankful for a place we can get our hands dirty and make our own! Our 1968 house has great bones, was well maintained and is wrapped in wallpaper from every decade. We’re slowly peeling the wallpaper off the walls (and out of our hair) as we make it home.
Today, I am beyond thrilled that I even have a completed kitchen to share with you because there were moments of this makeover that I thought we might be living with primed cabinets, no cabinets doors, and a corroded sink for the rest of our days. This summer we made the push to finish the job that has lingered in various stages for almost a year. We could not be happier with our like-new grey and white kitchen!
We were lucky ducks to have our breakfast nook featured here at Remodelaholic last year.
It was all happy and bright and fresh and done. Until you panned out and turned around to see the rest of the kitchen…
-Replace the back splash
This kitchen was completely redone in the early 80’s, so the cabinets were a high quality oak and still in great shape. I knew without a doubt, the best way to freshen up the kitchen on our tiny budget was by painting the cabinets.
I’ve always loved a fresh white kitchen, and started painting the upper cabinets first in a semi-gloss Swiss Coffee by Valspar. I googled several how-to’s and stuck with the same basic steps that I follow when spray painting wood furniture.
Remodelaholic note: You can find this brush at your local hardware store or here on Amazon.
By the time I finished the uppers, the desert summer hit and it was too hot to paint. Which gave me a couple of months to think about doing something different with the lower cabinets. Dang Pinterest. I really loved the two-tone look with light uppers and dark lowers, but was too chicken. I was so close to playing it safe and going all white, but finally showed the hubs some pics of two-toned cabinets. “Tell me your honest opinion….”.
This time I was sure to get a paint with built in primer. I skipped the primer and all it took was 2 coats of paint and another round of touch-ups. Win!
I don’t even know how to describe how happy I am with the grey choice. It completely makes the kitchen, and is perfect for our family with 3 kids under 6 years old. The dirt and fingerprints are much less noticeable.
We also painted that small strip of wall below the ceiling the same Swiss Coffee white as the upper cabinets (but in an eggshell finish). Taking the white on the cabinets all the way up to the ceiling, visually extended the cabinets giving the room some extra visual height.
Swap out the Hardware
Having both dark and light cabinets to consider made the hardware choice a little more difficult. The appliances are stainless and the faucet a darker slate, so I wanted something that would relate to both. I brought home all sorts of samples….nickel, brass, iron, bronze, polished, brushed….and in the end landed on the very first one I picked up from Lowe’s in a polished pewter.
Since the old hardware on the doors was a pull with two holes, we simply put the knobs in the top hole and filled the bottom one with wood putty. Once it was dry, and after a little sanding and paint, the hole disappeared. You can also glue a wood dowel in the hole to limit the amount of putty you need to use and the shrinking that can happen when it dries. If you find the putty receded further into the hole when it dried, then just apply a little more and sand it down to level with the door surface once it’s dry.
The hardware reads lighter on the grey cabinets and darker on the white, and changes in different light throughout the day. It wasn’t too modern for the traditional roots of this kitchen but unique enough to feel updated and fresh.
Replace the Backsplash
We saw these tiles at Costco about 8 months ago. We knew we weren’t ready to install them yet, but at $18 for 5 square feet in a color we couldn’t resist, they came home with us.
We ended up having to shift gears to finish our master bedroom update to meet a deadline and out of town guests were on their way with our kitchen very much in mid-reno.
I knew we couldn’t finish the floors in our master and the tile work in time, so we enlisted the help of a friend-of-a-friend contractor. After seeing Tim work his magic, I realized that was one DIY task I was glad to have in the hands of a professional. With all those intricate cuts, it would have taken me weeks…months….maybe years to finish.
And man, were they a game changer! They completely lightened up the room.
Replace the Range Hood
You can see the old bone colored range hood in the pic above. There was grease. A lot of it. And we’ll just leave it at that. Fortunately, the hood was a standard size, so my husband swapped it out while I was out running errands one day (no pics!). Once it was installed, we had this empty space behind the stove…
We thought we had just enough tile to do this area, but it was all the scrap bits and pieces. We feared we might be short (or die a slow death of piecing together the tile jigsaw puzzle) and with Costco all sold out, we decided to do something different…
A coat of primer followed by three coats of chalkboard paint and we had ourselves a perfect spot to jot down recipes, cooking reminders (start the crockpot at 1pm!), or even leave notes for each other. It’s so nice to be able to read the ingredients from across the kitchen instead of squinting and fumbling with a recipe card.
Address the Sink/Faucet
Gross and frustrating. That was our sink. The old faucet handles were starting to corrode even under the plastic handles. The shallow sink/standard low-arc faucet combo was the bane of my large dish washing existence. Every pot and pan was just a pain to wash, and water inevitably ended up all over the counter.
I’m certain I heard cheering when this baby finally came out…
We scraped all the old caulk off the counter top with a knife and razor blade, made sure the surface was clean and dry, then used new caulk to seal and set the new deep white sink in place.
So. much. better.
Figuring out the plumbing was like a puzzle of pipe pieces that required multiple trips to the hardware store, and my 6’4″ husband to squeeze himself into a comically small space. I’m pretty sure he’s still traumatized from it. Thankfully, when it came time to install the faucet, it was smooth sailing!
This Pasadena faucet by Pfister came with a handy install tool that made it easy to tighten those parts in hard to reach places.
The faucet is in a slate finish, which we ADORE. It’s darker than stainless and slightly more matte. The faucet has a high arc and pull down sprayer with different stream/spray modes, two of the most important features to us. Vanna here, will demonstrate.
And more importantly it has a smudge-resistant finish that has lived up to it’s name! All I have to do is wipe off any drops of water and she looks as good as new. Washing dishes is a whole lot more enjoyable!
We also used a couple of deep coffee mugs to make a portable herb garden. We just filled the bottom with a layer of small pebbles and transferred some small potted herbs to them. They’re perfect for starting seeds too!
Organize a Coffee Station
Throughout most of this kitchen makeover, the space looked very mid-construction zone. We lived without cabinet doors for a long time while I procrasti-painted, and it gave us the chance to experiment with open shelving. I love the look of open shelves, but I don’t love the dust. But one open shelf in the right spot, I could handle.
We ended up leaving off three doors – the two small ones above the microwave and the large cabinet door next to it – and we painted the insets the same dark grey as the lower cabinets.
The gold striped baskets (spray painted over their original orange and green) hold our tea. The large coffee jar houses our grounds and the bowl next to it has our filters and scoop. Mugs and yummy goodness live on the bottom shelf.
Having all our coffee making/drinking necessities in one accessible spot makes things so easy and that much more enjoyable. It’s also right between the sink and the fridge so we don’t have to run all over the kitchen for water to start the pot and creamer to fill our cups.
How about a final before and after?
As an added bonus, the breakfast nook no longer looks out of place.
The cost breakdown for this kitchen update looks like this (with the exception of the back splash tile everything home improvement related came from Lowe’s – with an extra 10% off with our military discount)…
Total: $663
Shortly after we finished this phase of our kitchen reno, we got news that we would be relocating to Ohio for my husband’s work. I had just recently been able to let go of that crippling “what if a buyer doesn’t like this someday” fear, and actually did what I really wanted in this space. Hopefully, there’s a buyer out there that loves it as much as we do! In between now and then, we’re going to soak up every minute we have in this happy space.
*The 3rd phase of this kitchen reno was supposed to address counter tops and flooring, but we’ll just have to leave that for the new home owners 🙂
P.S. Is it wrong to rip out a faucet and take it with you when you move? How about a back splash?
Deme, we love it! And we can’t wait to see what you do in a new home with a blank slate 🙂
Visit Deme over at House For Five to see all of her creative ideas and her cute family.
Wanting more gray and white kitchen inspiration? Check out 25 more gray and white kitchens over at Tipsaholic.
Thanks so much sharing our kitchen today!!
You are welcome! Great work!
Great, great job! Looks so modern and fabulous. I’m wondering what is on the kick plates below the cabinets. Is that stainless steel? I didn’t see it mentioned in the article. Sorry if I missed it. Again great job!
Thanks, Allie! I guess it does look a little deceiving in the pictures, but it’s actually a strip of the same tile that’s on the floors. 🙂
This looks amazing! So sad you’ll have to leave it though. Question: where did you find a white cast iron sink for $99? I can’t find a deep one for less than $300.
We couldn’t find one in our price range either so we went with something similar to this:
https://www.lowes.com/pd_469008-530-DKS01CB-3.5_1z0y8py+1z10i6y+2z8vo__?productId=4683837&Ns=p_product_price|0&pl=1¤tURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_price|0%26page%3D2&facetInfo=2.0|$100%20-%20$200
But you never know what you might find on Ebay or Craigslist!
It looks fabulous! I love the two tone combo. Now you have me considering it. I have postponed painting my kitchen forever, while trying to decide what “white” will look okay considering my floors are super light. Thanks for the inspiration.
Thanks Dalia! If you know you’re going to paint, it won’t hurt to throw a couple of samples on a bottom cabinet to see how they look with your floors. The end of our peninsula was a sample zone before we committed 🙂
I love the gray color you chose!! Also, the backsplash is beautiful!! Love it! You should have no problem selling your house 🙂
Deme…this is the first time I have looked at a page like this. I absolutely LOVE your kitchen! The idea of two colors for the cabinets has me jumping up and down. We’re not DIYers…but I can dream, anyway. The open cabinet for the coffee area is sooo smart…
What a shame that you will have to leave this beautiful kitchen. But, think of what you can do to your new house!!! Going to be looking forward to seeing what you do.
Hopefully I will be able to click the right thing on this page, so I can get back here later.
Thanks so much, Joan! Finishing this kitchen was such a huge accomplishment for us and it’s definitely giving us the confidence to tackle some bigger projects in the new place!
This is STUNNING! So impressed with all the hard work gone into this kitchen.
I’m currently adding a grey and white kitchen to my house and this post got me all giddy for when it’s finished 🙂
Karen x
this was such a helpful post- thank you for going to the effort to explain the process in so much detail. I love how your make over went. I’m sure your family will enjoy many happy years creating yummy goodness here. 🙂
Where did you get the rug from? I love it!
Hi Lauren – it was a Marshall’s find!
Whow I am also renovating my kitchen from dark cabinetts to white and planning grey walls. You inspire me and your kitchen is very very beautifull thanks and goodluck fromout South Africa
Wonderful kitchen makeover. Love the two tone cabinets. Been wanting to do that, but hubby keep saying maybe future buyers wouldn’t like it. But sometimes you have to do what you love and not worry about other people.
Love the backsplash. Do you remember the name of it? I know they discontinued it at Costco, but hoping that I can find it somewhere else close to that great price.
We worried about future buyers too and finally decided to just go for it – so glad we did!
The tile is by Golden Select and it’s the stone and glass mosaic tiles in Casablanca Marble. Hope that helps and good luck on your own kitchen project!!
You cabinetry is almost identical to mine. I have been ready for about 10 years to re-do our kitchen…just other projects always come first! Keeping these cabinets had no place in my plans until I saw your post. ….which I was drawn to for the sheer color and size appeal. I had to do a double take when you said painting cabinets was the first thing on your agenda….I just can’t believe they are the same cabinets! So now you have me re-thinking! I guess my fear is that painted cabinet doors might be sticky or tacky when they close?? Is this a problem at all?
Hi Sandy! I think it all comes down to paint quality and giving the cabinets adequate time to dry and cure before hanging the doors. It’s sort of like a manicure….your nails will be dry to the touch after a short time but they are still prone to chipping or smudging until they cure/harden. You’ll see a wide range of recommended wait times for letting cabinets dry and cure after painting (anywhere from a couple day to 30 days). We waited a week and didn’t have any issues. Between drying time and choosing a quality paint, you’ll avoid any of those sticky/tacky paint issues. Lightly sanding between coats also gave us a nice smooth finish. Good luck!
Whats the color of the walls?
Hi, Marie! We used Swiss Coffee by Valspar (same color as the upper cabinets but in an eggshell finish 🙂
Where did you find the rug, it’s so vibrant.
Hi Mary! I found it at Marshalls!
desperate
For the exact brand and color of top cabinets and bottom cabinet gray
As well as any part of wall that did not have backsplash on it
Hi Kathleen, the color on the upper cabinets and walls is Swiss Coffee (Valspar) and the lower cabinets are Ocean Storm (also Valspar). Hope that helps!
I love this makeover. I am looking at budget friendly ways to update the 70’s kitchen in my home. I’ve been waffling between shelling down the money for a brand new kitchen or just a modern make-over. This walkthrough of the process to update your kitchen has made me decide that a makeover is really all it needs.
Curious question: is the chalkboard easy to keep clean? My stove area tends to get rather greasy, so I’m looking for good, easy to clean alternatives. 🙂
Hi Camilla!
We did not have any issues keeping the chalkboard clean. It can be easily wiped down with a damp cloth. We mostly use chalkboard markers in this area – they don’t smudge if accidentally touched (like regular chalk) but wipe off easily with a damp paper towel. Kept things nice and clean for us. Hope that helps and good luck on your own kitchen!
Love love love!! I’m inspired to rid my kitchen of its ugly orange late 80’s cabinets too!
Thanks, Laura! We’d love to see pictures when you do!
I noticed you took out the outdated lighting and changed to can lights. I have a similar light fixture in my kitchen and am wanting to take it down, did you have any Sheetrock repair that needed to be done? I think we will have to patch ours.
Hi Amanda! We did have a bit of sheetrock repair but fortunately ours was minimal! I hope it’s the same for you!
Where did you get your sink and has it held up well?
Hi Kristen! We got it from Lowe’s and unfortunately, we had to move before we really had a chance to use it much, so I can’t attest to how it held up over time.
I realise you wrote about this experience over 3 years ago, so I’m really hoping you’re still checking for new questions! I was absolutely blown away by the almost exact similarity between your before kitchen and ours. Same cabinets, same shape, and even same exact lighting! I attempted painting my cabinets with a ‘quality’ cabinet paint kit, in black, and almost immediately the color began rubbing off and flaking. Your ‘after’ has everything I wish to do to my kitchen, right down to the backsplash!
I’m wondering how you dealt with your fluorescent lighting fixture and replaced it with can lighting? Could you please describe how much work is involved, if you needed to hire a pro for that part, and ball park cost? I’d be most appreciative!
Thanks for sharing, and I hope your enjoying your new kitchen, wherever you are!
Hi Ami! I’m sorry to hear your first attempt at painting was so frustrating. If it’s not the paint then possibly in the cabinet prep beforehand?
As for the lights, we did leave that to an electrician friend. He took down the old box, installed the canned lights and had to do some minor patching where the perimeter of the old box was. It’s been awhile but I think the total cost was around $150. Hope that helps and best of luck!