Luxury Kitchen Design Reveal – Complete Renovation With Photos!

In this post I’m sharing our luxury kitchen design reveal with photos to give you inspiration and ideas. It’s a kitchen that I’ve waited years for in this old home!

When you are an avid cook who spends a lot of time in the kitchen, functionality is always the first consideration in designing your kitchen. I thought long and hard for many years about what I could improve in my kitchen, should I ever have the ability to do a full renovation. That day finally came early last year when we decided to pull the trigger for a total gut and continue to give this home the love that it deserves!

To be honest, we’ve been thinking about moving for several years now. We’ve been compiling lists of the pros and cons of staying here vs. moving a few hours north, close to our beach home and selling both places. My husband has a working relationship to a few top realtors in this city and we had one come out to evaluate our home. Values have gone up significantly recently and it seems that everyone wants to move to Florida! We were a bit gobsmacked at what she had to say and figured that it was time to put some funds into renovating our old kitchen, whether we decided to sell or stay. You probably know that kitchen renovations can be some of the most expensive that you’ll do in a home. That being said, they can add 10% or more to the eventual sales price down the road. It made sense to tackle this in our case. See more about the renovation process in this post.

Our Luxury Kitchen Design & Reveal!

Opening Up The Space

The biggest change was opening up the space! By removing the two peninsulas we gained a much better traffic flow. Removing the soffits allows more light into the family room that only has one window on the north facing wall. A bonus is that now you can see the smart tv from the kitchen, which wasn’t the case with the previous layout!

The family room used to be the garage when we first moved in. We opened it up to create the new family room years ago as part of a large addition to the house. We added a new garage to the front of the house, added a laundry room (see that room here) and a large master suite. There is quite an interesting story to all of that, so if you’re curious…check it out here with very old photos! I’ll be posting a new project that we have planned in the family room as soon as we get it going in real time.

We don’t have a formal dining room, as is the case in many older Florida ranch style homes. However, we do have several areas to sit down and eat, including this dining space, the island, a new breakfast area (not shown yet) in the family room and lots of options outside in the garden and by the pool.

Source – Ballard Designs Counter Stools

Source – Ballard Designs Carriage Pendant Lights

Here is a personal code to use at Ballard Designs for $50 off any order over $200 – https://refer.ballarddesigns.com/shabbyfufu3

Source – Dining Chairs (which I painted)

Source – Family Room White Slipcovered Sofas (two)

Table is vintage/antique, read about that here

What Defines Luxury Kitchen Design

There is no single definition of what makes a luxury kitchen and they come in all shapes and sizes. Our kitchen is large, but it’s certainly far from grandiose! From our standpoint luxury kitchen design ideas do include some of the following.

• Fresh, elevated finishes and amenities
• Custom built cabinetry
• High end appliances
• Statement oven and range hood
• Upgraded led lighting
• Walk in pantry, butlers pantry or scullery

I’m so thrilled with all of the beautiful light in this kitchen, both daylight and artificial light that was carefully planned!

With a white kitchen it’s important to add either texture or color (or both). Although the kitchen is brand new I’ve added a couple of vintage pieces to the mix. The plate hung in my childhood kitchen, so it’s very nostalgic to me. The old paint newel post comes from a 100+ year old home in South Carolina and was given to me by a friend. Some luxury kitchen designs can look a bit stark to me, so I encourage adding personal touches in all kitchens…high end or budget diy.

The Walk In Pantry

As mentioned previously, a walk in pantry is a must have in a high end kitchen and was a must have for me! Several reasons for this but a goal was to hide the clutter from the countertops and goal achieved! We designed and built this hidden pantry from scratch and although it’s not large, it’s hefty on details. I’m planning on sharing more of this soon showing you a DIY and details.

The Working Side Of The Kitchen

And now the working side of the kitchen, including the pièce de résistance of the kitchen with all of it’s beauty and functionality! No, I’m not talking about the authentic vintage train station wall clock, rather the stunning and truly jaw dropping Ilve range in blue/grey and the curved brass strap Hoodsly hood!

Source – Ilve Nostalgie 40″ Duel Fuel Range In Blue Grey With Brass

Source – Hoodsly Curved With Brass Strapping Range Hood Fan Cover

Hoodsly is offering my followers 10% OFF a wood fan cover with the code Shabbyfufu10

Source – Kitchen Runner

I’ve had this oven and hood fan in place for a few weeks now and have been cooking up a storm! The Ilve Range that I chose is a dual fuel, meaning that the top is gas (we use propane with a tank outside) and the oven is electric. Last night I made a delicious pizza and it cooked evenly and was perfectly crisp!

Pulling back a little you can see that there is ample room between the kitchen cabinetry and the island. When laying out a kitchen always make sure that you’ll be able to open the dishwasher and have enough of a passage to walk past it comfortably.

We picked the same backsplash tile to use that we had in our previous kitchen! You simply cannot go wrong with White Carrara Marble and it’s much more user friendly to use marble on the backsplash than on your countertops. The tile makes quite a statement going up to the top and across the entire wall on this side of the kitchen!

Kitchen Sources

The Range – ILVE 40″ Inch Freestanding Dual Fuel Range in Blue Grey with Brass Trim (UPDN100FDMPGULP) (sponsor)

The Hood Fan – Hoodsly Curved With Brass Strapping Hood Fan in White (sponsored)

Refrigerator/Freezer – SubZero 48″ Classic Side-by-Side Refrigerator/Freezer with Internal Dispenser

Dishwasher – Asko Stainless Steel

Sink – Allia Fireclay Single Bowl 32″ Undermount Sink

Countertops – HanStone Montauk Quartz

Backsplash Tile – White Carrara Marble Wall & Floor Tile 3″ x 12″

Bridge Faucet – Rohl San Julio 1.5 GPM Bridge Kitchen Faucet & Sprayer in Polished Nickel

Water Filter – Home Master Under Sink Reverse Osmosis Water Filter System

Water Filter Faucet – Rohl Polished Nickel Water Filter Faucet

Cabinet Pulls – Emtek Jasper Satin Brass

Kitchen Runner/Rug – Nuloom Bodrum

Here you can see the whole kitchen and dining space as if you were standing in the family room. The old refrigerator doesn’t look bad from this angle, but it has some functionality issues and at 20 years of age it needs to be replaced and not repaired. We knew when we ordered all that we needed for this job that there would be about a 16 month wait for our new stainless steel SubZero. Patience is truly the key to any successful renovation and giving all involved in the process some grace!

How We Saved Money On Our Designer Kitchen

• We reused some of the old eased edge quartz countertop material including the island top. Although I considered using marble on the island, we kept the old quartz slab and reused it. Also we saved some of the other pieces to use on the sides of the refrigerator. Although we still had to purchase one slab of quartz, this saved us from having to buy two which netted us a couple thousand dollars in savings!
• Keeping our old tile flooring and finding something close enough to fill in any necessary repairs. Since our flooring was discontinued it wasn’t easy, but I kept ordering samples from Bedrosians until I found a close enough match.
• Although we ordered custom cabinetry, we saved by ordering drawer inserts on our own. I’ll be sharing more of our storage solutions in this kitchen soon.
• We designed and built out the entire pantry ourselves which saved us several thousand dollars. My husband had the brilliant idea of repurposing and reusing the wood from the old family room builtins that we took down! I’ll show more of that little jewel of a room soon that was a fun albeit complex project!

I’d like to thank all of our brand partners & contractors who worked diligently and efficient to help us put this kitchen together Ilve Ranges, Hoodsly Hood Fans, Eleet Cabinetry, Twins Tile, Arcs & Sparks, Coral Gables Plumbing & more.

In conclusion, you might wonder if we decided to stay or sell! For now, we are staying put since my husband’s work is in this town and he’s not ready to retire. We are fortunate to live in a quiet and well cared for neighborhood with lots of amenities and perks just a 10-15 minute car ride away. It’s possible that we will trade this lifestyle in someday for that quieter full time beach life, but not now. I will have lots of time to enjoy this kitchen and to cook some fabulous meals as well!

Please let me know if you have any questions or thoughts in the comments below. I love hearing from you!