EXTREME 1920’s Kitchen Makeover 🔨 *Hardest Choices I’ve Had to Make!* Ep 1

This background might look familiar to some of you if you've been following the channel for a while. Hello everyone, Drew here from Lone Fox and this background or this archway here is very reminiscent of my kitchen upstairs because if you are new here or you might have forgot, I actually live in a stacked duplex meaning that the lower floor is identical to the top floor. So when I bought the house, I could spend my money and get a duplex opposed to a single family home and I got way more space for my money, hence why I got one. But within buying a duplex and turning it into a single family home, you do have two kitchens. So this is actually the second kitchen space that I'm in right now. And this kitchen is super cool because it has a bunch of the original 1929 elements of this home. So it features all the original tile work throughout. It also has the original cabinetry, the original flooring, which the flooring is so damaged. It's like a linoleum, so it's not even nice at all and it needs to be pulled out. And you guys, this makeover has been one that I've kind of been a little scared to jump into because this color palette like this right here, if you know me and you have seen my designs before, it's not exactly me. However, I think we can figure something out in here. This has been one of the hardest projects to brainstorm I've ever, ever worked on in my life. Like I've already gone through so many different like chat GBT renderings of this space. If you didn't know, you can actually use that. Also, by the way, I did not know it was chat GPT. I thought it was chat GBT. That's what I've been calling it this whole time. You could put photos, which I didn't know, into it. Like you can take a photo of your kitchen and say, paint the cabinets this color and it will dispense you an image of the cabinets painted that color. So I started playing around in this kitchen space because all the cabinets were white, which looks great. Like my cabinets with this tile, it looks totally fine. However, in my opinion, it's boring. Like it's not that interesting. It seems a little safe to me. And it's kind of like, I don't know. I want to do something a little bit more fun, a little more in depth. I just want to like test myself when it comes to being able to work in a different kind of like style and space. And this is all original down here. I first started off with kind of like a dark plum color because I was trying to think of something that would look nice with both of these. These are kind of also on like a medium tone level. So started off with a dark plum and this is what we get. And I kind of like it. Like I'm not mad at the dark plum. And so I kind of was like, you know what? This is a contender. I also posted on my Instagram, which if you are not following, make sure to follow it. My Instagram is lonefoxhome right here, because I have been going through so many like trial and errors and posting photos and stories and asking you guys questions over the past like week about this kitchen. And it's more real time updates over there. So I basically posted a poll with a bunch of the color options for the cabinets and the amount of responses was crazy. And I have the plum slash maroon option, which I shared with you. Then we have this kind of like chartreuse lime green in a sense. And I kind of felt like it meshed the two tones on the wall. So we have kind of like our yellow and then this kind of like more minty color. And I felt like this was kind of like a blend of those two. And it looks kind of nice on the cabinets. I also tried like a caramel color because in the little kind of detailing here, if you can see, there's actually this little orange kind of caramel color that's added, which is not anywhere else in the kitchen. So I thought maybe we can do that. That was my least favorite of the three. For my last option, I actually ended up doing one where I took the yellow countertops off, which I know a lot of you guys are already probably screaming at me at your home. I know, I know. Don't worry. I don't think we're going to go on this route yet. I want to try to make these yellow countertops work. I really, really want to try. I actually ended up finally breaking down and getting some paint yesterday. And I went with the dark plum option because that's what everyone seems to like across social media. So I was like, okay, let's do the dark plum. Let's see how it looks. I started painting the dark plum on you guys. And I started like freaking out. I was like, this looks so bad. Like it was so, so red. I don't know. I also was filming at like golden hour. So it was kind of maybe coming across more bright in my head. I could not continue with this color. I was like, this is not looking good at all. So I stopped immediately and pivoted. I drove straight to Lowe's and I ended up getting a cream color. So I ended up getting Pharoah's cream by Pharoah and Ball, but I got it just color matched in a cheaper option. And I had to go over the top of everything I did because I just could not go to sleep with the cabinets being red like that. I'm completely pivoting now from the dark cabinetry at the moment. We're pivoting to more of this, what I'm calling a buttercream moment. A lot of the inspo, which I haven't shared here, is kind of drawn from the Lottery bakery slash like patisserie in Paris. And so I thought that this green tile was really reminiscent of it. Like when I first saw it, that's what I immediately thought of. And especially with the yellow as well, kind of the pastels. So I figured we can go in that route, maybe kind of gear the direction of the kitchen a little in that way. And if you also recall, our movie theater room is just right on the other side of this wall here. It's literally on the other side. So this is also kind of like a little bit of a cafe, movie theater, snack bar kitchen. It's definitely going to have the essence more of a casual kitchen. It's not going to be full on intense, like upstairs where I have a range hood and like all this like built-in marble sink and craziness in there. You know, like that was a full on kitchen makeover. This one we're going to have a little bit more fun in, and I really want to try to salvage the yellow, the green. Also, I'm not going to lie to you guys if I go and put marble in these, which I did go and look at the stone yard. I did. I took a peek. I'm not buying. I'm just looking. I'm not buying. I'm just looking. I'm not buying. I'm just looking. I'm not buying. I'm just looking. If I put marble in here It's probably gonna cost me like upwards of 12 to 15 K just like being totally transparent So that's just a big undertaking as well Like I'd have to remove the yellow and then we'd have to like go through the process of templating It's just a long long process. So I kind of want you see what I can do with paint We're doing this together you guys so let's go ahead and dive on and already my first little like section of buttercream color yesterday So we're just gonna continue on with that I kind of want to focus on this part of the kitchen which is actually where the windows are and like the sink and the dishwasher And then we can do the butler's pantry after because I wanted to see how the color looks over here Also, you guys if you have not been getting my last few videos in your inbox I just feel like they haven't been sending out like I posted all of these check them out If you have not seen any of these they might be appealing to you. So check out my channel They're my last three uploads. That was the longest intro ever But let's go ahead and dive on into it this kitchen makeover and see what we can do Yeah, it looks nice Green color is looking really really nice. This has one coat on it and I actually oh no I did get the top of the door But this fridge I have to talk about this because this spot that they have for the fridge is so shallow You guys like the depth of this cabinet right here Which is the spot? You're gonna scream 15 inches is the depth of the cabinet. So like there's no such thing as a 15 inch depth fridge I can't even really find anything like under 27 so I don't exactly know what I'm going to do This fridge here is just far too wide for the space because it's kind of overflowing I can find a fridge That's more narrow. Um, but I think I might have to actually Take the wall out from behind the fridge and so I can push it back So it's flush with the cabinetry and this right here is a laundry room So I think we're gonna have to like maybe build something out behind the fridge or something I'm not exactly sure one of the only ideas that I have the fridge also could technically move over Like right here, but I just don't think that that would look That great. It's just not super deep. So I'm not sure I feel like this clip here really shows the color well so you can see that against the white and I just used a brush to paint on and then a roller to do the Larger sections of the cabinet and then we also prepped the windows So we went around and just cleaned them off We were prepping them for some spray and I kind of got sidetracked by starting to strip this metal item That was in the kitchen. I had no idea what this was You can kind of see it in the top right here between the windows I started to strip it because you can just tell that it had been covered in layers and layers of paint and I just wanted To see what was underneath. I figured if it was an easy thing to strip might as well go ahead and strip it I was actually surprised to see a kind of sage green color enamel underneath, but it was definitely scratching off with stripping It was not staying put so that kind of sucked I was able to get a majority of the paint off the top of this and as I was going I actually was able to Find out that in the center there was a little bit of a logo and it read West Wind You can kind of see it here And so I ended up googling that looking it up and finding this brochure from 1920 for a West Wind Cooking fan and it would basically free the odors from your kitchen So any odors in your kitchen you would turn this on it was sort of like a vent hood But in the wall in a sense after about 30 minutes of stripping that I gave up and I am gonna go back to that In probably episode 2 but I decided to test a couple of paint colors on the ceiling and then also Prep our window trim for paint because I did not want these optic white windows in here So I sprayed them with the Benzinder shellac primer, and I'm gonna go over it with my paint Hello good morning everybody you might notice that the fridge is gone I actually ended up posting it on Facebook marketplace The other day along with our range over here because I knew I wanted I needed to get new ones Anyways, they're outdated this one here, especially was far too wide. It wasn't like outdated, but this one is a little outdated I just know I need to get new appliances in general So I basically said if you can move them out you can have them So I had someone come and pick that one up and then he's coming to pick up the stove today as well the fridge gone You can totally see the color that we have now applied to the cabinet So this is the Pharaoh's cream color and this is what was behind now It seems like there was definitely like some water damage at some point with the fridge But it's completely bone dry now But when we pulled it out from the wall There were some tiles that were kind of popping up and the floor was completely dry So I think it had to have been maybe when the previous tenants were here Maybe the fridge was leaking or something and they didn't know but it seems to be fine And I'm really loving the direction of the color. I kind of brought just a couple little styling props randomly out from my little styling room just to see like what Some things would look like on the countertops out here now that we have the cream color on this half of our area I have an uppers and I have some fun ideas this portion of the video. I really need a lot of help you guys I just need your opinions your thoughts So feel free to sound off in the comments below first little plan of attack is actually Because I mentioned already that this right here the spot for the fridge is far far far too shallow So what Justin kind of and I were thinking yesterday is what about if we put the fridge? Inside of the laundry room because the laundry room is actually pretty big and kind of build this out and maybe turn this into What could be like the popcorn like because you know the movie theaters right here? So we can kind of maybe do a shelf here and then have like covered doors on the bottom half and maybe have like a Drink fridge on the bottom half and then like popcorn machine on the upper half and paint it all in so it looks Totally built in I thought that could be kind of nice And I also thought too that if I ever went to sell the home in the future or something That's an easy thing that I can pop this out if the tenants you know or whoever wanted to put a fridge here could still do so and That's kind of what we're thinking for here because there's just no possible way to find a fridge Under the depth of 27 inches that would fit here And it's still gonna pop out about 12 inches from this little side cabinet here And I just feel like it's not gonna look great. It really feels so nice and open without it there keep in mind This is our second kitchen space, so it doesn't have to be a completely Totally like chef kitchen. You know like we can have the fridge in this room over here, and there's space for it So I think that's gonna be the option I also which I kind of forgot to even mention I took these down from upstairs These are the window mullions that I have in the upstairs kitchen windows, and I'll link these for you guys I always get questions on them These are straight from Etsy And you just send them along your window dimensions like the interior size And you can get them cut to really whatever they have them in wood as well if you have wood windows And you just pop them in and it totally changes the look of the window So I brought them down from upstairs because I knew that the windows were probably the same size And they were so I just popped them in the window to see how I liked them And I really think that they're quite Pretty I'm not a hundred billion percent sure if I'm set on the diamond shape for down here. I love it upstairs I might do the classic kind of like just window panes in these ones which I've kind of done in the rest of the house But I love your guys's opinion, so let me know do you like the diamonds do you like a classic window pane? They do kind of feel like Spanish cottage like I don't know they feel kind of cool at the same time so Totally open for that now I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what I'm doing for hardware in the kitchen And we are actually going with polished nickel in here. I decided to go just against brass I don't think brass is gonna pair nicely with the yellow vibe like not the creamy cabinets I think it looked great on that but paired with the yellow in the green I feel like the brass is just gonna feel off. I think that silver it looks really nice here as well This is an old tap. I'm gonna replace this one with the newer taps that is all currently on order I will pop up the one that I ordered right here. It is from rejuvenation It is such a beautiful kind of like art deco fluted esque style Which I feel like goes really well with the style of this kitchen down here. I'm rambling off so much We also have the flooring which has also been ordered exciting So we have things on order right now Which is fun because that means that we can work on processes when they come in because we do have some more painting to do I do soft to finish the butler's pantry bringing the cream down this area flooring has also been ordered and I'm going to be doing a One by one little square tile on the ground and I'm gonna do a design in it And I originally was planning on doing like a hex tile or a square tile And so basically I was gonna do a hex tile and do like just like a border around it So it kind of felt like classic vintage kitchen or vintage bathroom But I was thinking to myself since we went a little safer on the cabinets in terms of color and it's not going like dark And moody or we're not doing anything crazy on the cabinets kind of more So just subtly blending in with the space I thought it would be nice to maybe amp up the floor design a bit And so I'm gonna do kind of this little like rickrack back and forth design I was looking up 1920s kitchens and some tile patterns from 1920s kitchens, and I think this it's gonna look really nice So I ended up ordering a biscuit base for the floor. So it's like an off-white We have the black tiles that we're gonna accent and do that kind of rickrack on and I'm gonna border it all The way around the entire kitchen, so it's gonna feel really really custom And I think it's just gonna tie back to the original tile work so beautifully We do have to also paint the ceiling. That's another huge thing that I'm kind of struggling with Let me flip the camera drive a couple up here Mainly some pink tones I don't know why I was feeling pink But at the same time that means that this kitchen can totally lean Easter which I don't want I want the pink to feel more of like a salmon or something like that, you know So I tried a few different colors. I just don't know what to do on the ceiling I could definitely do like an off-white I even could do just a fresh coat of white on the ceiling if that also feels nice I could even wallpaper it like if you guys think wallpapering the ceiling could be cool I just don't want the wallpaper to lean like too granny and then this kitchen be like super old like set in the past You know, this is gonna be picked up soon. And actually the previous tenants they had not only one range here They actually had an additional range here That was like a range and then a microwave built in but we ended up removing that when I first moved in But there was an issue with like the gas over here when we moved in So we had to pull those out and I didn't want them in here anyway, so took those out of here now There's just this so essentially this is an open area and I'm thinking to the right of the range We're gonna create some sort of like countertop Maybe a stone top or like a wood top or something and then above this area There's gonna be two shelves. I'm picturing two shelves and just lots of styling so like plates dinnerware Canisters you can put candy in for like the movie room just things like that styled up here I also love that we have a sconce that we can play around with so I want to get something new for there Something else that is so random not has just thrown me for a loop. Is this above the sink you guys? What are we doing there? I'm so sorry. What are we doing here? Because these are like glass shelves It's almost like this was a medicine cabinet at some point and I don't like it. So I do Actually have this mirror vintage Ikea mirror and I'm just setting it there for now, but It could go here and it has a squiggly edge The only thing is I don't love the edge of the mirror with the diamonds I think they would look better with the like simple crosshatch ones and this could basically go Here, but I don't know if that's weird. Like is that weird? I kind of love it though I'm so sorry and another thing that we need to do in here Bamboo shades above the windows like the bamboo shades over the windows I think that's really going to add this natural element because I want to have wooden other places So like for example a wood mixing bowl on the counter. I want to do the wood bamboo shades I want to do some sort of wood top for other little counter area that we're gonna be over here Maybe some wood shelves. I want to incorporate elements of natural back into this space because there's really none at all It's like tile and paint. So we really want some natural elements in here, too So yes, that is kind of the direction at the moment. I am just waiting on some things to arrive We're definitely finishing up painting the cabinets over here And then I think hardware actually should be here probably next week so we can put that on and that's totally gonna change the look Of all of our cabinets, you know how there's two uppers on either sides of the windows What if I turn these into like display cases or like display cabinets more like and we just cut out the inner Kind of panel and put glass here and we could style in there because there's not that many Spaces and like if I want to free up a little more countertop space like some of what you're seeing here Which I just threw on the counter can go up up in here and kind of be styled and the shelves are actually nicely spaced So I thought if we painted that all out the same color turn these into like little display Cases or like China cabinets in a sense could be cute. So yeah lots to think about I hope you're liking the direction of this kitchen so far It's very very different than anything I've done and also I know that some of you guys might not like the direction of it It might not be your taste but I definitely Trying to honor the style and the era and also just the original essence of what is in this kitchen I really want to try to work around it and make the yellow work Thank you all so much for your thoughts and opinions and also quickly before heading out Don't forget to also head on over to my shop lonefox.com. We are having 15% off on furniture right now So if you need any vintage furniture any really cool accents, we have been getting so Much stuff you guys I never talk about it too much here on the channel But there is so many pieces over there so much artwork as well and cool vintage one-of-a-kind decor So check it out. And yeah, I'll catch you in my next one. Bye