Wow! This one has been such a long time coming. We started this project all the way back in December of 2022. Our clients had just purchased this new home in the hills of Portland, but it was far from their dream home. They saw great potential, but it had a long way to go. 

Let's take a trip down memory lane to see where this kitchen started out. Their kitchen was colorful in all the wrong ways. From worn down wood cabinetry, to yellow and red walls, this place was in serious need of an upgrade. 

photographer: emily kennedy photography

The kitchen is galley style, so fairly long and narrow in nature. But with the fridge over on the righthand side as you walk in, it felt particularly cramped. With a stairwell right behind the fridge wall, we didn't have a lot of room to work with.

Our ultimate goal, was to make the kitchen feel more open while giving them a more functional layout and maximizing storage space. 

The existing space used the peninsula towards the living room as a bar, with a mini fridge, a bar sink, and their cooktop. With their wall ovens being all the way over by the fridge, this layout just didn't make a lot of sense. 

FRIDGE

OVEN

We went through several possible layouts, including the sink on the stair wall, or the range over there. Also a few ideas in which all of the appliances were on the window wall. In the end we moved forward with our plan to move the fridge over to the window wall, center the sink between the two windows, and do a standard range / cooktop over on the stairs wall. By moving the fridge, we were able to make the wall of cabinetry by the stairs feel a lot less heavy but not having anything going floor to ceiling. Instead we have the range, standard lower cabinets, and standard upper cabinets to make it feel a lot more spacious. 

We also raised up one of the windows in the kitchen that originally was a desk so we could extend the counter-height cabinetry all the way across the kitchen.

Once we narrowed down the layout, we started honing in on the material palette and what aesthetic we wanted to curate in the home. We always do 3D renderings for our clients so they can visualize the final design, and for this project a critical decision was figuring out if we wanted natural wood cabinets or painted to add a pop of color. 

We ended up going with a bright blue cabinetry color, to pay homage to the old colorful space, but in a more tasteful way. We paired that with a variated backsplash tile in nude and salmon tones and a white and grey carrara countertop that we carried up the walls with a small ledge at the top. The slab ledge was something I was so excited for! Not only because it adds an extra level of detail, but because it functionally adds a little more space for all the things you need. Over on the range side, it's the perfect spot for oils and spices.

The last thing in the kitchen we needed to think through, was the empty nook area right between the kitchen and the living room. Where we could've gone with a standard dining table, we ended up creating the coziest breakfast nook, with hidden storage built within the benches. Up above is one of our original renderings of what we envisioned that space to look like.

Without further ado, here is the final reveal of our House in the Hills Project! And don't worry, we'll have some product links and paint colors down for you at the bottom!

miller paint, beacon fog

miller paint, marshy habitat

cabinetry
paint

banquette
paint

Sherwin williams,
greek villa

wall
paint