Hamptons Style Kitchen Renovation

Chami is a fabulous member of our Renovating Mums community who has just completed her Hamptons Style Kitchen renovation, read on for her experience…

1 Where did you find your inspiration? Was it easy for you & your husband to agree on decisions?

We live in California Bungalow style house so I knew I wanted a Hamptons style kitchen but our house is not grand or big enough for a kitchen with lots of details so I went for a more tone downed version. 

I used a mix of pinterest, magazines and visiting some kitchen shops for inspiration. 

While hubby had some input into the overall layout of the kitchen he pretty much left all the other details up to me. The only thing he talked me out of was going for the Calacatta stone as it would have taken us over budget….next kitchen LOL!

2 How long did you live in the house before you started renovating?

We have been living in this house for 3 years and have just started with renovations.

We plan to do the bathrooms next as they are very old and then move to the backyard and hopefully a pool.

Initially I wanted to do all our renovations as soon as we moved in but due to budget that was not possible. Looking back I’m glad we waited as it has really helped me see exactly I wanted.

3 How did you find the planning process? Any tips to make this easier?

I’m a big researcher so I read lots of reviews before choosing a kitchen supplier and spent ages looking at photos of kitchens.

We choose Bentleys Wardrobes and Kitchens in the end based on a recommendation and we found them amazing. I highly recommend them.

To keep within our limited budget we kept to the original layout as much as possible avoid extra plumbing and electrical costs. I think this really helped us stay in budget. 

4 How did you go with the budget? 

We budgeted around $35,000 for the kitchen and we came in at around $33,000.

Some of the things we did to help the keep in budget was keep our original dishwasher as there was nothing wrong with it and reuse some of the original bamboo floorboards for the new floor.

I think the one thing I learnt about being in budget is to know exactly what you want but be flexible.

Check out our Renovating Mums Budgeting Spreadsheet here

I originally wanted our sink to be on the back wall of the kitchen but due to the size of the access under our house this would have added more that $5,000 to our renovation. So I left the sink in the island where it originally was.

I’m glad I wasn’t too precious about this as all the money we have saved we can now put into our other renovation projects on the house.

5 Did you use an Architect or Interior Designer? 

No, I planned and designed the kitchen myself

6 How were the trades during the build? 

The tradies were great. All really nice to work with, left the place clean and didn’t cause more mess than they needed.

They were so great that I felt happy to leave them at home while I went to work meetings, picked up the kids from school and ran errands.

7 What do you love the most about your renovation? 

I love the splashback tile and the handles that I chose to put on the doors and drawers. I also love the colour of the island as it has turned out exactly how I pictured it. Ohhh…and I also love the carved in drainer on the stone!

I also really love the pull-out pantry drawers. They just make it so easy to see what we have so no more items hidden at the back of the cupboards.

This is a small thing but I love all the power points. In our old kitchen we only had 2 sets of double power points which made it so hard to plug things in. I made sure the new kitchen has plenty of power points even one in the island. Such a small thing but such a luxury to me.

We also got skylights installed in the house a few months before and this has really helped the lighting in the kitchen. They help make it such a bright airy space. I highly recommend Top Hat Roofing if you want Skylights put in, Jim and his son did an amazing job for us.

8 How did you source your fixtures / fittings?

We had the option of sourcing our own fittings or having the kitchen company source them. I found the kitchen company received good trade deals from Winning Appliances so we had them source our sink and tap.

We sourced our oven/stove and range hood from The Good Guys ourselves.  Again I just read a lot of reviews before choosing the appliances.

I also sourced our Tiles I sourced myself from Tile Living in Drummoyne. 

9 What does your family love about the renovation?

We are all really happy with the kitchen.

My husband loves the extra space and how light and bright everything looks (we are really big on natural light).

My daughter, who is 11, loves baking and she has been baking non-stop since the new kitchen was installed. I made sure she has baking drawer that’s easy for her to reach so she just cooks on her own. Great for us but not my waistline LOL!

10 What was the hardest part of the renovation for you?

I have to admit living through the renovation did get a bit stressful at times. I still tried to cook at home as much as possible but trying to cook and do school lunches etc on a small plastic table was not ideal.

We don’t have a big house so the whole house was turned upside down while the renovation was being done.

Though I think the kids loved all the eating out and eating dinner on the couch, which is normally a big no no in our house.

Overall though it was worth it, I think you just need to be really organized and keep telling yourself you will have a space you love to help you get through the renovation.

11 Did you have a timeline? 

I wanted the kitchen done for my sister in laws 30th birthday which we were having at our place, and we just made it by a few days!

It did take a little longer than expected (probably about a week) due to the stone benchtop taking longer to be cut. Overall took just over 4 weeks from demolition to  completion.

12 Did you do any DIY?

No, my husband is not very handy (even though he likes to think he is) so we got everything outsourced.

13 Any regrets or things you would do differently?

I still wish I had gone with the Calacatta stone but I do love the one I did end up with. Other than that overall I’m really happy with it.