A client contacted me about working on a house they just purchased. She loved her new home, but was not happy with the kitchen cabinets and trim. During our consultation, she expressed a desire to make several changes. She wanted to add height to all the upper kitchen cabinets, remove a few lower ones, and change the shape of the island. As for the trim in the house, she wasn’t sure what she wanted and told me to just make it look nice, saying “I trust you to make it look nice.” We created several molding and trim mock-ups to provide her with options, and once she made her choice, we got started. In the end, she loved the result.

The plan was for them to wait to move in until the work was done. So we were under pressure because they wanted to transition to the new house soon. Our 3D drawings helped ensure we met the timeline for completion.

Adding height and depth to cabinets and trim

Wainscotting adds drama

Here is a nice before and after shot of the refrigerator and oven cabinet. We demolished the original refrigerator cabinet and built a new, deeper one to add depth. Additionally, we extended both cabinets to the ceiling and incorporated them into the original crown molding. These types of changes to the kitchen cabinets and trim definitely add drama to the space.

You can see that we created wainscoting on the stairs. This was a challenging job due to the six dimensional changes that take place in the wall as you go up the stairs. It was one of the more time-consuming aspects of the job house trim, but the results speak for themselves. Undertaking a challenge, such as the stairs, required a lot of meticulous work.

Stairs before wainscotting

The dining room entry initially had a plain sheetrock entryway. We enhanced it by wrapping the sheetrock in columns that match the profile of the wainscoting added to the stairs. Updated kitchen cabinets and trim can go a long way to update a house.

Other changes to the kitchen cabinets and trim included encasing the windows to bring them together and increasing the height of storage cabinets in the dining area.