Our 50s Kitchen Renovation - Week 9
We were really excited about the progress of week 9. The biggest impact was the installation of our new floor. Although our old floor was in terrible condition, we liked the general look of the vinyl tiles. After looking at a ton of tile samples, I chose Tarkett VTC flooring, in their Expressions Line. We went with this tile because the texture was closest to the original vintage flooring we were replacing. The original tiles most likely contain asbestos, so the new flooring had to be placed right on top, rather than pulling them up. The flooring installer spent an entire day putting down a new sub floor, right on top of the old flooring and filling in any cracks, to prepare for the new tiles.
The original kitchen floor.
Sub floor installed.
I played with a ton of different designs to see what would work best. My first thought was to do the typical checkered pattern, but was afraid that the pattern would be too overwhelming. So instead I decided to skip every other row, to create a more open pattern, that still suggested the checkerboard, without going all the way. (Fun Fact: I actually was inspired by the flooring at the Milford Market Basket, which had basically a dotted line of tiles going down the middle of their aisles.) I also played around with tiles on the diagonal or straight and decided that having the tiles turned on the diagonal would match the angles of the lazy susan cabinets. I mocked up the kitchen floor for our Youngstown Kitchens salesmen's model, so we could really see what it would look like.
Our Youngstown Salesmen model with one of the floor patterns I mocked up.
The floor pattern on the diagonal.
The general color palette of our kitchen is red and mint green. Initially, I wanted to incorporate the mint green into the floor, however after seeing it mocked up in a model I was afraid that the green as going to be a bit too much. I decided on just white and charcoal grey tiles. The installer did a great job. He even matched the angle of the tiles with the 45 degree angles of the corner shelf and lazy susans.
Another big change this week was the addition of a working laundry room! We were almost as excited for this as we were about the new floor. This meant we didn't have to visit the laundromat to wash our clothes and could now do so from the comfort of our own home. We also like having a separate laundry room, rather than having the washer and dryer in the kitchen. We did a load that night, as soon as the workers left.
The new laundry room. Doors will be added, eventually.
We also had one of our new windows installed on the porch area. We went with a Marvin glider window, which looks wonderful and lets so much light in. The new window in the kitchen area should be installed soon.
The new window from the outside. It's nice to have a window again.
Looking out of the new porch window. We plan place our kitchen table in front of this.