The time has finally come to say goodbye to 1987.

It has served us well over the past 3 years that we’ve lived at our house, and I’m sure it served the previous owners for the 29 before that. It’s a quality kitchen with all the mod-cons for a glamorous 80’s lifestyle, complete with warming drawer and even a wall mounted toaster! Which I can honestly say I’ve never seen before, and will probably never see again. It has certainly stood the test of time, being in immaculate condition, and as good as the day it was installed.

But as most things in life, all good things come to an end, and in 2019 this house makes way for a new type of luxury – a modern kitchen.

This kitchen by Tom Howley is probably as close to a perfect kitchen as they come. It’s fresh, contemporary yet traditional, and just oozes quality. I love the color of the cabinets and the light flooring, and the warmth added by the wood. With a little bit of glam added by the sparkling polished nickel hardware. It’s everything I love – it’s a little rustic with the wood, it’s definitely country with the traditional inset door cabinets, and it’s very chic. There’s just one problem, Tom Howley kitchens are based in Manchester, UK, and our house is in Minnesota, USA, just a few 1000 miles away. So I began the hunt for a similar style…

That’s when I found Cliqstudios. I actually happened upon them via a Facebook ad in my feed, and when I had a look at their site I found that they did in fact have the inset door style that I liked. After searching quite a few online kitchen retailers and big box stores, I found that Cliqstudios had a niche in their offering of the inset door style. So I ordered a sample and was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the door. They’re 3/4″ solid wood with 2 1/4″ mortise & tenon joints, and the paint is thick and lustrous. Funnily enough they’re actually based in Edina, MN but are purely an online retailer with the cabinets being made in Indiana and because they’re sold factory direct and online they’re 40% cheaper than most similar cabinets you can buy on the high street. And the best bit? We ordered ours today!

I have to say I was a little nervous about ordering cabinets online. But we had a great designer who we called and emailed frequently to get us to our final layout. He also had the patience of a saint, having started the original enquiry about 2 years prior to actually ordering the cabinets, and going through many, many revisions. But we’ve arrived at the best layout for our needs now and we’re really excited about seeing them in situ in a few weeks time.

If you can ignore the terrible PowerPoint skills to make this mock-up, you can get a feel for what the end result is going to look like. We’ve chosen light grey inset cabinet doors with exposed hinges to get that old English handmade cabinet feel. We’ve added touches of warmth with a French Oak engineered hardwood floor, and a light oak distressed beam. And the glam is provided by the polished nickel hardware, faucet and show stopping crystal halo chandelier.

Here’s the moodboard:

And a close up of the samples:

We’re using Eternal Calacatta Gold quartz by Silestone, and Austin Urban Stone painted doors in the kitchen, Carbon in the bar area, with polished nickel solid brass hardware by Emtek and Baldwin. The floor is Vintage French Oak by Lumber Liquidators.

Stay tuned for the gradual reveal as we go through 6 weeks of chaos to get to the end result.

Thanks for reading, until next time,

Jo