Are kitchens your favourite spaces too!? To me renovating kitchens combine the best of both worlds: designing a beautiful looking space, but also planning on how to make it most functional too. For this blue and green camp kitchen, I specifically made certain decisions knowing that it’s going to be a short-term rental – so check out how it ended up!
Can you believe this is our lucky number 7 kitchen!? We’ve had a lot of experience over the last (almost) 15 years, and I do (and learn) something new every time. In case you missed it, here are allllll the other kitchens we’ve renovated:
- Our first DIY kitchen (wood cabinets, Ikea Akurum!)
- My brother’s budget kitchen (white and black)
- Our basement apartment kitchen (also a short-term rental)
- Raised ranch kitchen (the one we have now!)
- The cottage kitchen (which apparently I never shared but here are better finished photos)
- The rustic industrial kitchen (our long-term rental)’
Let’s just get into all the great reveal photos, yes?
At around 14.5′ x 10′ this kitchen had three entries (from the hallway, dining room and outdoors) all positioned on the one side.
There’s also a big (4′ ish) window where the sink was placed, and we tried to keep the layout almost the same. This helped avoid any plumbing/electrical moving. Aka saving money :)
Yes, it would have been nice to center the stove on that back wall. But there was no way we were moving the big outlet.
As it is, we were still able to get in a nice corner cabinet (with a turning lazy susan). And a huge 36″ drawer for alllll the pots, pans and cooking utensils.
Because this is a short-term rental, I wanted to have all the dishes out on floating shelves. The less cabinets that people have to open and close trying to find things, the better!
Another way we were able to save money was reusing all the appliances. (Except the new microhood). Yes, the stove is stainless steel, the fridge is almond coloured and the dishwasher is black… but they work! The fridge and dishwasher are possibly older than me, ha!
Kitchen Details
So many “people” online (think designers, home influencers, etc.) hate on microhoods – but they are such a good space saver. I need an exhaust hood, and I need a microwave, why not combine them!? We always plan to exhaust them outside rather than have them recirculate, and while it’s a more annoying/involved install, it’s worth it in the long run.
My vision for this kitchen was installing the backsplash halfway up stopping at floating shelves. I also wanted the floating shelves perfectly lined up with the bottom of the wall cabinets.
Which obviously made the cabinet installation a bit tricky. We installed the microhood cabinet first (as high as we could put it!), then installed the microhood. Using a laser level, I marked the bottom of that, then we put in the corner cabinet.
Obviously it was all, “we need to do it as we go”, which didn’t please the Husband too much, ha! It’s always easiest to install your wall cabinets first, but c’est la vie.
Useful Kitchen Items
Tucked between the corner cabinet and the fridge is our “coffee station”. Not sure if the glass cake dish will stay forever (renters might not use it, ha!). Here we house all the coffee mugs, the keurig machine, coffee pods, etc. In the corner cabinet I have miscellaneous kitchen items (like peanut butter, popcorn, etc.) – but keep the bottom shelf open for people to use.
The cabinet above the fridge is also installed as high as we could go. It’s the narrower upper cabinet (as opposed to the traditional above-fridge cabinet that’s 24″ deep). I didn’t want it sticking out a lot, and did end up installing it on a 2×4 so it sticks out just a smidge more than normal.
Tucked in the corner near the entries, we have a big garbage bin, hot/cold water cooler and tall recycling bin. This was definitely one of those “short-term rental” decisions. Big groups staying tend to go through a lot more garbage than we do on a regular basis, and it needs to be easy to find.
New Dining Room Entry
Last time I posted the dining room – so here are a few more photos of that area!
Remember when I said the kitchen was around 14.5′ x 10′? Because of all the entries (especially the exterior 6′ doors), it really only ends up being 10 x 8′ of usable cabinet/working space.
Even if this wasn’t a short-term rental kitchen, the exterior door is still a big workaround.
It goes out to the back deck / lake, and is not something we would ever take out.
Kitchen Sink Area
One of the big reasons I wanted to renovate the kitchen (other than making it look different) was to add drawers! There was never a good place to put utensils, and I knew I could add some. By downsizing the kitchen sink cabinet (this one is 24″), I could move the dishwasher to the right and add a bank of drawers.
The sink is no longer perfectly centered on the window – but I’d do that for drawers anytime :) I don’t think the new hanging pendant light is centered either…
Because I like to switch things up, I went with a black stainless steel faucet and a single stainless steel sink in this kitchen.
The dishwasher is not that far from the dinnerware, so it’s easy to unload everything when clean.
And speaking of the dishes, I got one set new from Ikea and was going to mix and match with what was left at the camp. But then I saw someone selling another green set of dishes on Facebook Marketplace and had to buy them! They’re not all the same colour, but they work :)
If you squint hard enough, they sort of all match the backsplash too!
Haha, either way, they definitely go with this fun kitchen!
We kept the original terracotta-esque tile floors, but may eventually replace them. (As in, years from now – and only if we update the rest of the flooring).
I still have to give them a good scrub, but they’re definitely the type of floors that hide a lot of dirt/dust.
Have I shared enough pictures of this fun blue and green camp kitchen yet!?
Only changing out the cabinets/countertops was a really budget friendly way to update this kitchen. Do the mismatched appliances ruin the vibe?
Kitchen Renovation Summary
Honestly, I don’t really care because the rest of the kitchen is so fun! If I didn’t mention it, these are the Lerhyttan blue cabinets from Ikea.
But like… do we even remember where we started!?
The photo above shows almost the same view from the hallway entry looking at the window/sink area. The original sink cabinet was abnormally large, and we really didn’t need all that storage here. If this was our kitchen, I might have kept the sink a bit bigger (I like to store the garbage/recycling under the sink) – but for a short-term rental, it’s not necessary.
And here’s the view from the dining room looking at the stove! We went from a wild amount (10!) upper cabinets to only 3. Removing all the upper cabinets opens up the space a lot more than before – and as I said, it’s a lot easier to find things. This is another one of those short-term rental decisions that maybe would be different if we were living here permanently. Obviously you’d need a bit more storage for food items; but I’d probably put big cabinets (and maybe move the fridge?) to where the water cooler/garbage is now.
The kitchen is just a litttttle bit too small for an island, but I have felt like maybe a tall rolling cart situation would be beneficial here. Again, had this been a permanent/long term kitchen, I would have probably tweaked the layout a bit more. Peninsula seating even!? Who knows!
So, what do you think about our blue and green camp kitchen!? Is it your favourite kitchen we’ve designed? Is it something you could see yourself living with? Even choosing the fun colours here were done more for a short-term rental… but I can definitely see myself going bolder with “permanent” colours in the future too.
🛍️ Shop This Room
- Lerhyttan blue Ikea cabinets
- Ikea microhood
- Green backsplash tiles
- Hanging pendant light
- Kitchen sink
- Kitchen faucet
- Hanging paper towel holder
- Black handles
- Green dinnerware
- Paint Colours: November Rain (Walls), Seedling (Green Bench + Trim), Schooner Blue (to match the cabinets)
PS: Click here to see my Amazon Shop in Canada (and the Amazon.com Shop) for all the other camp stuff!
Oh, and I have a lot of video footage for this kitchen renovation that I really need to edit and post. Will let you know when I do that :)
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