Welcome to our farmhouse kitchen. I explained in a previous blog post, why we love historic homes, so today I wanted to share with you some of our farmhouse renovation hacks we’ve used over the years. This is an excerpt from my full kitchen renovation blog that you can read here.
We began minor family-friendly renovations the minute we moved here in 2007, and we continue to make them because we are still not finished and we recently listed our farm on homeexchange.com.
As we begin this exciting journey of home exchanging for travel I thought I’d share some of the ways we previously restored rooms, gardens, and outbuildings and how we’re simplifying to make our home exchange-worthy for guests. I will break these down by project so look for them in future blogs.
Farmhouse renos can unveil difficult challenges, objects of educational interest, and even disturbing artifacts. Even a small change can prove difficult. But we didn't let that discourage us during this kitchen construction project because as we uncovered the years we looked for creative design elements and clever ways to get what we needed, disguising imperfections along the way.
making a Coffee Bar
Using found objects: One side of the kitchen came with a small clean-up sink and dishwasher. It's a great bonus space that older farmhouses usually don't enjoy. In the original kitchen, the very old double wall oven used to be on the left, but with the renovation, we moved the refrigerator to that space and kept the little sink, dishwasher, and lower cabinets much the same. If you look closely you’ll see a window peeking out of the wall. That’s the kind of surprise that’s very exciting. I spent days trying to rearrange where the fridge could go so that I could expose that window because it looks right into the refurbished pantry. Finding this was so perfect, but I could not find another space for the fridge and so we had to sacrifice the window….for now.
Since coffee is a big part of my mornings, we transformed this area into a little coffee bar. And what does every coffee bar need, but a big chunky mirror above it? This is my favorite part because the mirror I used didn't cost anything. In fact, I found the wooden frame alongside the road one day. It was just abandoned by its owner never to be used again, or so they thought. I grabbed it, cleaned it, painted it, took it to the local glass shop, and had it fitted with new antiqued mirror glass. Yes, this is something you can actually buy. I just love the way it turned out and how it fits perfectly in the space. It's a great way to repurpose an old frame that you can't part with and it’s a conversation piece for sure. Start hunting for yours.
Here are a few detailed photos of the mirror, Kingston Brass faucet, magnetic spice tins, etc. You can find links to most of these items and/or items with similar styles on Studio Sprig’s Shop My Home page.
I like to keep a little vintage-style pitcher next to the coffee maker so that I can easily fill it. I store my coffee grounds in a pretty apothecary jar and I use a stainless, beaded scooper created by an artist at a craft fair. I’ve linked a really nice copper coffee scooper here. The apothecary jar and soap dispenser sit upon artistic tiles made by my children.
Thank you for visiting the coffee bar portion of my kitchen. I am happy to answer any questions you may have about the transformation if you comment below. And if you’d like to see the full kitchen transformation blog, visit here. If you’re a blogger, what’s your favorite SEO Tool? I’ve had much keyword success with RankIQ. Learn more here.