You'll Have to See This Ikea Kitchen Makeover to Believe It

Updated on 6/23/2016 at 9:15 AM

When Allie Siarto and her husband first saw the kitchen in their future house, they were dismayed. It was old and dark and lacked the features they had hoped for in their new home.

But underneath the 1970s wallpaper and creaky, dated cabinetry, they also saw potential, so they teamed up with architect Jon Jorgenson to reimagine the space and turn it into the kitchen of their dreams. By combining the kitchen and the dining room, introducing new cabinets and appliances, and adding a 13-foot kitchen island as the focal point of the space, they were able to completely redo their kitchen and dramatically transform their home.

Read on to see the before-and-after photos and find out the amazing Ikea hacks that helped them achieve this look!

Kitchen: Before

Kitchen: After

Window Seat: Before

Window Seat: After

Dining Room: Before

Dining Room: After

The Makeover

After pulling out all of the old cabinetry, the couple decided on Ikea cabinets with painted shaker cabinet facades, purchased from a company called Semihandmade that makes cabinet faces specifically to fit Ikea kitchens.

They opted to put the microwave in the cabinets next to the fridge, rather than on the counter where it could become an eyesore.

To brighten up the room, they added 10 can lights in the ceiling and, above the island, three pendant lights from Schoolhouse Electric Co. out of Portland (in Luna Antique Black, $139 each).

The 13-foot island they added to the middle of the kitchen also provides a lot of extra storage in the form of pull-out drawers.

Originally, they had planned to have floor-to-ceiling pantry-style cabinets surrounding the window seat at the front of the house. Instead, they opted for low cabinets with additional countertop space and Ikea Lack floating shelves that were cut down to fit the space.

The additional counterspace doubles as a coffee bar, while the floating shelves open up the space to even more light. For the window seat, they ordered a custom four-inch cushion from Cushion Source and added in some throw pillows and an orange rug for a pop of color.

On the opposite end of the kitchen, the couple decided they wanted a dine-in kitchen booth, so they used a DIY Ikea hack to build it. Starting with two Ikea Stuva benches that they already had and some custom-made cushions from Cushion Source in the same fabric as the window seat, they then sewed 3M hook-and-loop removable hanging strips onto the cushions and stuck them to the benches and the walls.

They finished off the dining nook with a table from West Elm.