Before & After: From the 1960s to Today!
The retro look might be back in, but this kitchen that hadn’t been touched since the 1960s was a little too retro for the owners of this beach house on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. The kitchen needed a total upgrade (and a small bathroom in the house also needed renovating) but there was a small budget. With the help of a designer, clean lines, IKEA products and a neutral color palette turned this dated kitchen to a modern breath of fresh air.
From Hilary:
Typical of many houses built in Australia at this time, it was full of asbestos. The bathroom walls, floors and ceiling needed to be fully stripped and then replaced. This retro kitchen featured apple green cupboards, a range against a wall, no set-down space for a pan — not a great layout! For some mad reason, if you switched on the light socket on the wall the tap came on! I had great intentions to save the retro orange tiles and get creative and up-cycle them, however, because they were backed onto asbestos — they had to go!
Our new kitchen was from IKEA, and we teamed ABSTRAKT doors in Gloss Grey for the base units and then teamed it with their range in white for the wall. The handles were the BASTIG knob and the countertop was their PRAGEL in Light Oak effect, which is one of the most realistic laminates I’d come across. The plus on going with IKEA for this kitchen was their units came in a smaller size as opposed to a larger standard wide. I was able to get more functionality into the kitchen by using these cupboard sizes.
See more of this renovation on Hilary’s website.
Thank you Hilary!