There’s been a big change in our kitchen — literally a new hole in the house. Okay, technically it’s a new door, but it made a huge difference. Our last post shared the photos and details of the new kitchen porch we built just outside the cooking area. Now let’s look at what changed inside.
To rewind a bit, here’s the kitchen as it looked when we bought the house in February 2020:
We shared our initial updates in May 2020 and later posts covered more recent changes, including why we didn’t completely rip out the kitchen before moving in. If you follow that history, you’ll see how the space evolved and why this door felt like the missing piece.
Here’s a similar angle today. The new door transformed how we use the kitchen. John grills most weeknights — chicken, shrimp, burgers, even pizza — and the porch just outside makes it so much easier. He’s become obsessed with grilling (it’s up there with his mitre saw), and we’ve even been gifted steaks for an impromptu backyard feast. I’m also planning to try baking chocolate chip cookies on the grill, so stay tuned for that experiment.
Before the door went in, there was a shorter run of cabinets beneath the window. John’s calculations showed we’d only lose about 18 inches of cabinet space after accounting for the accessibility we gained to the previously blocked corner cabinet.
That space to the right of the dishwasher became a wider lower cabinet with a drawer above it (26″ wide). We lost the little peninsula of cabinets (44″ wide), so the net loss was just 18″. But the trade-off was worth it: easier access and much better flow to the porch.
The new doorway gave us an instant, incredibly useful outdoor extension of the kitchen. It’s not a full outdoor kitchen, but it’s perfect for grilling, covered seating, and faster grocery trips into the house.
We also added a full pantry to the kitchen, which drastically increased our storage. That upgrade, combined with the reclaimed access to the corner cabinet and the new drawers and shelves, changed how we cook and store things in this space.
Between the three new drawers, six new shelves, and the cabinet over the fridge, our storage situation is much improved. The drawer next to the new door is actually empty right now — having a little breathing room feels good and influenced our choice to skip upper cabinets and install two rows of chunky wood shelves instead. The shelves, paired with brass-and-white sconces, keep the room feeling open and intentional. If we ever need more storage, we can always add upper cabinets later, but for now the open shelving and tile-backed wall work really well.
To free up the doorway space we carefully removed the cabinet using mostly a hammer and pry bar, saving the drawer and door fronts so we could repurpose them for the exposed corner cabinet. There was a small patch of missing flooring under the cabinets; our pine floors matched easily enough and the pros who installed the new doors “feathered in” replacement boards so the repair wouldn’t look like a rectangle patch.
I finished the new boards with the same Bona floor finish and sealer we used when we refinished the floors, and the match was seamless. You can’t really tell where the old floor ends and the new begins, which was the goal. If the match hadn’t worked out, our backup plan was to save flooring from the bedroom area we plan to convert to an ensuite and use that piece to patch this spot later.
We also combined leftover drawer and door fronts to make a wider drawer and door for the newly exposed cabinet. With careful filling, sanding, priming, and painting, the seams are invisible — we’re really happy with how those pieces came together.
We’ve ordered new cabinets for the back wall, which are currently in our bedroom. They were delivered right before a family loss, so we paused the larger renovation. The plan is to install those cabinets and new counters in the future — and yes, we’ll paint them the same mauve because we love the color.
You can still spot the seam where the laminate counter was extended to cover the exposed corner cabinet, but once the new cabinets, counters, and tile go in, it will look cohesive and like it always belonged there.
Update: If you want to see the space after the full cabinet and backsplash renovation, check the kitchen renovation before & after post — it includes a complete budget and final photos.
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