We turned the destroyed kitchen into a comfortable space using our own efforts.
Our heroine Yulia is a flight attendant and designer in her second profession. Together with her husband, she decided to transform a standard kitchen in a Khrushchev-era building into a cozy and stylish place. The couple thought of every detail to ensure there was ample storage space, and also developed solutions for the unusual layout, even managing to accommodate a refrigerator. Julia shared some cool tips and secrets of home staging that will come in handy for you too.
Yulia and her husband are both flight attendants, so they did the repairs gradually, in their free time. They understood that it was necessary to create a cozy space, given the traveling nature of the family’s work. The goal of our heroes is to make the house as comfortable and convenient as possible.
Photo BEFORE renovation:
They did not change the layout: all the walls are in their places, the owners were happy with this.
Kitchen area – 5.63 m². The couple got a linear kitchen set, and the refrigerator was placed in the hallway. The guys made the kitchen a single contour to make the space ergonomic. They also left a Soviet refrigerator – it cools drinks. The radiators were not changed – they and the pipes were painted, creating a dark accent.
There is ordinary linoleum on the floor, wallpaper on the walls, the ceiling was left as it was – plaster and whitewash (they were refreshed). It was important to think over a cozy corner in the kitchen for romantic evenings – a round table with a diameter of 90 cm helped with this. It’s not very comfortable for three people to sit here, but for two it’s very comfortable.
The kitchen was made to order from a Penza factory: without appliances, the set cost about 130 thousand rubles. There are quite a lot of storage spaces, and Yulia also shared her main life hack. If you have a small kitchen, organize storage in the lower plinths: the guys’ kitchen is raised a few centimeters from the standard one. Roll-out drawers are hidden in the base.
The Soviet refrigerator was left behind, but decorated: the doors were kept from the previous owners. Storage is also organized inside the refrigerator – the temperature here is lower than in the entire kitchen. The old window sill was dismantled and the most ordinary furniture board was bought, covered with stain and wood varnish on top – the solution cost 2 thousand rubles.
The refrigerator is built into the pencil case. They did not make retractable mechanisms in the corner section – they store things that are rarely used there. The tabletop is non-standard in depth: at the hob – 60 cm, at the sink – 43 cm.
Our heroes paid great attention to the budget, so they refused to level the walls. This did not stop us from hanging the set and creating a smooth apron: we made it ourselves, found a life hack on the Internet – bought sheets of drywall and attached it to the wall.
And one more tip for a long-lasting backsplash: first the set, then the backsplash tiles. Also, be sure to use a light-colored sealant along the joint between the countertop and the tile.