Basement Kitchenette Makeover

Mike and I recently did a basement kitchenette makeover.  At the time, our daughter and granddaughter were living with us and we thought that giving the space a facelift would give their basement apartment a little more charm.

The kitchenette is super small and someone who lived here before us added upper cabinets that made it feel dark and closed in. Simply replacing the cabinets with rustic open shelving and painting the lower cabinets lightens up this little kitchen

We added bead board (horizontally) and Mike made a gorgeous wood countertop …

Although there is no stove, we cut out a microwave cubby …

(there’s no microwave right now because no sooner than we finished the little kitchen, our daughter unexpectedly moved out!)

This little space had wallpaper that wasn’t coming off without taking the sheetrock with it, so,I ended up painting over the wallpaper. I’ve tried this before with no luck but this time it worked! (If you try this and the seams give you issues, just use a bit of sheet rock mud to smooth out the seams. When the mud is completely dry, sand smooth, THEN paint)

There was no space on the small countertop for a microwave… 

But with no oven/stove down here, a microwave was necessary…

To keep it out of the way, Mike cut out a hole in the sheetrock and made a cubby for a microwave. The adjoining room is mostly unfinished but has electrical outlets, so it worked like a charm!

When thinking about how to makeover the basement kitchenette, I wanted to give it a cottage feel but keep it somewhat cohesive with the rest of the house. The bead board and the cute pendant helped with the cottage vibe .

While the rustic shelves and wood countertop tied in the design style with the rest of the house.

I asked Mike to make a wood countertop when we opened up the cabinets in the kitchen…

*open shelving in the kitchen...

And I’ve made a point to carry the rustic shelving from room to room in our living area… Breakfast Room

Over the kitchen sink we have this cute pallet shelf…

We added rustic shelves for dishes in the dining room …

The powder room is home to a couple of rustic shelves…

Even the laundry room! has a rustic folding ( & fold – out) shelf and a rustic window shelf…

So the basement kitchenette fits right in with it’s rustic shelves and wood countertop.

I’ve decided to move my office/craft room down here so I’ll get a lot of use out of the little kitchen.

What elements from your home do you like to repeat from room to room?