Before and After: A Dark, Dated Galley Kitchen Gets a Modern Makeover
When Matt and Amanda first looked at this house, they were able to instantly imagine fixing up all of the rooms — except for the kitchen. It was a dark, dated galley kitchen with a wall smack dab in the middle. Matt writes: “We went back to look at it one last time and I just sat there trying to visualize what the solution could be. When I realized it could be done, I did my best to explain the mess in my head to Amanda and we went for it!”
Their first step was to simply knock it all down. As Matt says, “We had [the contractors] gut everything, including three walls — one that enclosed the dining room, one at the entrance to the kitchen, and one that inexplicably split the kitchen in half. The kitchen ended up exceeding our expectations.”
“The window was enlarged and the back door was replaced with one that had a lot of windows. The original kitchen was very dark. The combination of more windows and less walls really sunnied it up. We also put in new doors throughout the house to match the craftsman aesthetic.”
“The floor tile was something that took us a while to find. Our contractor kept asking for it and we kept stalling because we couldn’t settle on anything we liked. We were really good with meeting our deadlines but this one was a challenge. Then one day Matt was driving in Long Beach and saw a sign that looked like ‘The Twilight Zone’ logo and then saw that it said ‘The Tile Zone.’ He stopped in and found the tile we ended up using in a herringbone pattern.”
Thank you Matt and Amanda!
