A record of Airbnb’s Two Kitchen Makeovers

Big day, big day, BIG. DAY. Not only are we gonna give you a tour of both completed duplex kitchens, we also AT LAST got our Airbnb listings up and running. Phew! So keep reading for all the photos & the details on how you can book a week there if you wanna check out Cape Charles for yourself (we think it is the best summer vacation ever – but we might be a little biased).

So the picture above is obviously the kitchen with the blue tile & wood cabinets on the right side of the duplex (which you’ve seen bits of already in our post about installing the Ikea cabinets and tiling the backsplashes) but I am in fact going to pop over to the other side – the kitchen with the pink tile & blue cabinets (seen below) for the first part of this post.

we have so much to show you, but I want to start off by rewinding to the state of things when we first picked up the duplex in 2017. This was the view from the living room towards the now-kitchen (see that orange trim through the doorway?).

And the previous (clearly not original) kitchen had been shoved into a former side porch to the left of that orange trimmed window above, which did not exactly feel like the right spot for it.

Here is a comparative “after” shot to the one I shared two photos up. Obviously one large improvement was widening the doorway (and adding a transom!) to connect these two spaces and maximize flow and light. Plus, now you can see our wall of tile all the way from the front door.

The now-kitchen was in fact a dining room of sorts before. We think. Although an old fridge was inexplicably floating in the middle of it. But clearly this bigger room was begging to be the new kitchen. At least that is what the two-toned trim is saying to me in this picture.

Here is a similar view of this area now. We raised the base of the window so we could run cabinetry across that wall and brought in pocket doors so the laundry can be closed off if it is too loud while it is running for anyone cooking or eating or watching TV.

One big update since you’ve last seen these rooms is that they are in fact stocked with stuff now. Blenders, toasters, coffee makers, pots & pans, knives, silverware, serving bowls, plates, cups, wine glasses, mugs, microwaves, even tupperware and salt & pepper are all ready for renters. And yes, there is a cheese grater on each side too. Along with wine openers and chip clips.

We mentioned in our backsplash post that we opted for a distinct treatment on the stove wall because it felt too chaotic to continue our patterned tile on that side too (we leaned it up to see how it looked and it felt too crazy on two walls). So we went for something subtle yet wipeable and straightforward to maintain. Note: We could have done the accent tile on the stove wall, but the back wall’s visible from the front door and has that pleasant centered window, so we hoped to make that wall the star, and cast the side wall as more of a “supporting character.”

Ok, but back to our “subtle yet wipeable solution.” Some call it planking, some call it horizontal paneling, and some call it faux shiplap (real shiplap interlocks), but we were inspired to jump on the bandwagon after long admiring how Shea McGee works it into her beachy/modern home designs, as well as loving Chris & Julia’s TV wall in their family room. Our verdict: what took us so long?! (Also, where do I pick up my Fixer Upper merit badge?)

I will share a photo walkthrough of it soon, but it is in short simply thin pieces of plywood we cut down to planks, nailed to the wall with small spacers, and painted with durable and straightforward-to-wipe semi-gloss paint (we color-matched it to the cabinets so everything blends). We think it’ll provide a more durable and stain-proof surface than plain painted drywall – like how people add beadboard backsplashes – and it was so low-cost & straightforward to do.

And while we are looking at the appliances, you can see how we chose stainless for the slide-in range and refrigerator, but went with a white countertop microwave so it blended right into the white wall behind it.

I know some people have been curious about the exhaust hood over the range so here are the details. We chose to give one of Ikea’s range hoods a try because we hoped something that looked fully built-in like cabinetry. So the hood is simply an insert they sell that automatically comes with all of the materials and instructions to build it into a standard Ikea cabinet.

The only thing you need to figure out is how it vents. Since we cannot vent outside (due to the central firewall required in a duplex) we chose their option to add charcoal filters that clean & recirculate the air. That is the reason we left the compact gap above the cabinet instead of adding crown up there. The charcoal filter traps the greasy stuff at the bottom of the hood, but the clean air still needs a spot to escape, hence that little crack up top.

For the fridge we chose a not too fancy but still pleasant looking top freezer model. It is not quite counter depth, but we were able to build it in with a side panel so it looks pleasant and unobtrusive. We were also sure not to buy one with an ice maker or water dispenser because both of those can break or cause leaks (when we lose power in Richmond our ice maker leaks onto our wood floors – ACK! So we do not want to worry about that in a house that is vacant in the off season). It may seem minor, but we are trying to minimize/eliminate maintenance issues wherever we can – even the little ones. And we will leave ice in the freezer and a Brita filter in the fridge for renters, so they’ll have cold water & ice on hand.

If you were scratching your head wondering where the dishwasher is, well well well, look what we have here: a built-in, cabinet-fronted dishwasher! The first we have ever done! And we enjoy it. We truly did not want to interrupt that line of cabinets against that back focal wall, so we crossed our fingers that this would work – and it did. Our plumber installed the dishwasher but we brought in the cabinet panel & hardware ourselves, which truly was not hard at all. It does take some careful measuring (they provide a helpful paper template to eliminate the guesswork) but overall it was quite straightforward.

We also have built-in trash cans on the far end of that back wall. Ikea allows you to customize these, so we were able to match the look of all of the other 3-drawer cabinets in the room, but the bottom two are in fact one big pull-out.

The floating shelves are another thing you have not seen yet, and another thing that I will write a walkthrough for in a future post – including how we drilled through the tile without disaster (it. was. nervewracking.) along with how we built them ourselves to custom-fit the space. We fairly much followed the same technique that we used for these floating shelves in our bonus room, but they are a little thicker and more heavy duty so they can support tons of bowls and mugs and cups.

Sherry stained them “Special Walnut” by Minwax, which is the same color we used for the floors throughout the house, so they tie in nicely and add some warmth and sort of an older/original vibe with the shiny new cabinets.

Okay, so now we are back on the other side (the side with the green-y blue doors throughout). The kitchen layout is exactly the same on this side, simply flipped, but the finishes and colors are distinct. So for example we have brass hardware in here, the shelves are a distinct color, the cabinets and backsplash are distinct, etc).

This is what this side looked like before, as seen from the living room. That window in the way back is the one that now sits over the sink.

Once again, widening that doorway and adding the transom truly opened up this space in a major way. That kitchen window gets some of the best light on the first floor, so in person you can truly appreciate how good it feels to have these rooms more open to each other.

This is the best before photo I could find of the now-kitchen itself. Apparently we were so distracted by the former kitchen (again, now the mudroom/laundry room) to take any good shots of the adjacent space. But it was in short simply a big yellow room with a rando fridge in the middle of it. And some faux greenery… which I am not knocking because faux greenery is in short our enjoy language these days. #Foreshadowing

And here is a similar view today. You can see that we in fact shifted/narrowed the opening to our now mudroom/laundry room a little (and brought in those pocket doors) in order to create some wall space for the cabinets to terminate into.

When I was talking about how we built our shelves, I should have mentioned that we designed them to be 8″ deep, which is intentionally too narrow for heavy items like large plates or bowls. We know some people do not enjoy the idea of open shelves because they worry the items might get dusty, so most of the actual serving stuff (bowls, wine glasses, plates, etc) are still stored in the cabinets. These are simply a pleasant place for smaller overflow things like measuring cups and cutting boards and tea mugs that are frequently kept out on a rack or a counter anyway – along with some decorative things like vases/plants.

We lucked out that the pine we purchased to build these shelves was QUITE similar in color to the Ikea cabinets that we chose. So instead of staining them, we simply clear-sealed these so they’d echo the blonde cabinet color. In these pictures they do not look as identical as they do in person (when you look at them in real life, they are so similar it feels like they were sold as a matching set).

As for what else is in the cabinets, we are thinking we will film some sort of “cabinet tour” once we have everything fully moved in an organized. We ended up with a similar number of cabinets to our beach house kitchen, so we are going to mimic a lot of the systems in there. Plates and flatware will go in the cabinet next to the sink. The drawers flanking the stove will get pots, pans, and other cooking stuff & servingware. The lesser used storage items will go in the upper cabinets, and we have pantry storage in the adjacent mudroom/laundry room.

The smaller number of cabinets in here might not fit every possible gadget that someone might want to have in their full time home (especially a especially chef-y person), but we enjoy knowing that we have all of the basics covered with THREE CABINETS/DRAWERS TO SPARE. It is pleasant to know there is room to grow if we forgot something – but there is already a ton of stuff in here (including things like ziplock bags, cooking oil, pyrex, a spaghetti strainer, soap & cleaning stuff, a vegetable peeler, an ice cream scooper, etc, etc, etc).

We are hopeful that next week we will have photos of both fully wrapped up mudroom/laundry rooms for you – plus give a peek at how our little twin bed sleeping nooks turned out. And by that point I think you will have fairly much seen everything except the backyard, which is still in progress.

And if you are someone who has been thinking about renting the duplex, we have listed each side separately so here is the info for ya.

So here is the link to the Left Side (with the pink doors) and the link to the Right Side (with the blue doors). Each side sleeps up to 6 people (plus one baby – pack ‘n play & sheet provided!). If you are interested in booking both sides at one time, simply check the availability and book each of them for the same dates and the whole house is yours!

Right now we are only offering weekly rentals for the peak summer season ((Saturday to Saturday, late June through August). If you are looking for something shorter than a week this summer, places like Hotel Cape Charles, The Northampton Hotel, and Bay Haven Inn offer nightly rooms for around $220-260. And as much as we enjoy our dog, these rentals will not be pet-friendly. We are simply trying to be extra sensitive to allergies and noise, especially considering that this is two homes with a shared wall.

Update: It is nearly all booked up! Holy cow! There are simply two more weeks available on the right side (click the black Saturday date you want and it’ll highlight the week in blue and then you can click the following Saturday to request to book that week). We are planning to offer shorter off-season rentals in the spring/fall too, but we are warming up by renting for the summer season first (since we will be nearby at the pink house if an issue pops up). But we will make a big announcement after off-season bookings when those are available.

It is exciting (and nerve-wracking!) to at last open this sweet house up for reservations, so please bear with us as we work out any kinks during our first go at a short-term vacation rental. You know we will tell you everything we learn. And oh boy do we expect there to be a learning curve!

You can also check out our Cape Charles Travel Guide that we posted last year if you are curious about what there is to do/eat there. Since we have written that, more shops have popped up – like a few new bakeries and even an escape room that is coming!

P.S. You can see all of the other wrapped up rooms of the duplex that we have already revealed along with how we tiled the bathrooms, planned the layout, and screamed into a pillow when the review board denied an architectural change we were dying to make here in our duplex category.

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