Newport Kitchen

The couple had purchased a home that had been flipped to sell. The flipper’s kitchen remodel consisted of opening (not removing) the wall between the kitchen and living room, slapping a countertop on the bar height half wall between the two rooms, and installing the bare minimum amount of cabinets (1 sink base, 1 blind corner cabinet, and 4 wall cabinets). There was only one drawer and it was not wide enough for a silverware tray. Due to lack of storage, my clients were piling cookware, canisters, and pantry supplies anywhere they could (on top of wall cabinets and countertops, in plastic rolling drawers next to the refrigerator, and in a small cabinet under the bar height counter).

In addition to improving the aesthetics, the number one goal was adding enough storage to make the very small kitchen functional. My solution was to completely remove the wall between the kitchen and living room. Removing this wall allowed me to:

• Sink wall – I was able to center the sink under the window, add a pull out trash/recycle cabinet to the left of the dishwasher, replace the blind corner cabinet with a lazy Susan, add a large wall cabinet and a small open shelf cabinet for cookbooks and a decorative item.
• Range/Refrigerator wall – the new lazy Susan gave us space to add small drawers for utensils next to the range and a deep wall cabinet above. In the space where only the refrigerator stood, I added a pull-out pantry cabinet and deep wall cabinet above the refrigerator, making full use of every inch.
• Finally, where the half wall had been, I added three large drawer banks that consisted of one shallow drawer and two deep drawers each. These drawers alone, more than quadrupled the kitchen’s storage capacity.
• The expanded length of the sink wall and the run of three drawers also vastly expanded the amount of counter space in the kitchen.