Corner Breakfast Nook and Kitchen Refresh Before and After!

This post is sponsored by ProCore Floors.

A corner breakfast nook and kitchen refresh reveal using herringbone LVP flooring to transform the space on a budget.

I woke up today feeling like it’s Christmas! The reveal of our corner breakfast nook and kitchen before and after is finally here! Considering this was a no demo makeover, I cannot believe the difference.

There are so many details and project tutorials that went into these two connected rooms in our house that I’ll share the full budget breakdown and timeline in a separate blog post.

Breakfast Nook Sources & Budget Breakdown

Kitchen Sources & Budget Breakdown

Facebook Marketplace finds, breakfast nook inspiration sifting, some non-demo out-of-the-box thinking to work with what we have, and a whole lot of paint went into this one.

But the change that made the most massive difference in these two spaces are these gorgeous herringbone luxury vinyl plank floors from ProCore Floors at Lowe’s!

Now that it’s done, I keep asking myself, “Why didn’t we cover that old tile with these floors sooner?!” Those dark wood tones in the Brookewood color ground these two spaces beautifully, and the contrast actually makes our home look bigger.

The lighter Ashewood color would be beautiful too, if you wanted a more modern, airy look.

Corner Breakfast Nook Before and After

For 5 years, this breakfast nook area stumped me big time. I lost track of how many times I redecorated it in my head to make its small size and weird traffic flow work for us.

In the end, nothing worked until finally, Robert said one day, “What if we just moved a door?” Light bulb moment!

Why We Chose Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring in Our Breakfast Nook and Kitchen

We thought our corner breakfast nook project idea would be years down the road when we eventually plan to gut our kitchen down to the studs, including the connecting old tile floors that were always a slipping hazard for our family.

My cousin, mother-in-law, and our daughters have all fallen on this tile at separate times before (especially since we all often track in water from the backyard pool), and I vowed to replace the tile ASAP.

But demolishing the tile, mesh, and mud bed underneath would be very expensive, time-consuming, messy, and require some skills we just don’t have.

Then, we discovered we could just FLOAT these ProCore Floors herringbone luxury vinyl planks on top of the old tile!

Tutorial | You can see how to install a herringbone LVP vinyl floor over tile here.

It ticked so many of the boxes on our must-have list to correct a lot of our flooring issues, but most of all its DIY-able installation and durability sold us.

LVP Flooring Benefits:

• Waterproof
• Stain resistant
• Scratch resistant
• Durable
• Low maintenance
• Better sound absorption vs other flooring types
• Holds up to kids, pets, and high traffic
• Easier to install than tile or hardwood floors

We installed a different pattern of ProCore Floor’s Meadow Oak luxury vinyl planks in our neighbors’ rec room makeover last year.

They’ve held up so well and the installation was so easy that we felt really confident using them in our home too.

When to Install Floating Vinyl Flooring Over Tile

Installing a luxury vinyl plank floating floor isn’t the best solution in every situation. It’s best to remove old flooring before installing new.

But not every home situation is ideal for starting from scratch (much like ours). so it’s a fantastic solution to add an upgrade in place of an eyesore quickly and inexpensively.

Situations to Consider an LVP Floor:

• When you need a floor option you can install yourself
• When you can’t remove your current flooring due to budget/live-ability constraints
• When you want the look of hardwood floors without sacrificing durability
• When you need a low-maintenance flooring option
• When you need a budget-friendly flooring option (ProCore LVP flooring starts at $1.19 per square foot)

It has been about a month since we installed these herringbone LVP floors, and we are so completely happy with how easy they are to clean and how beautiful they look. (We have found them to be way less slippery than our old tile too, so I don’t worry nearly as much when water ends up on them.)

Corner Banquette

Tutorial | Corner Banquette Makeover and How to Redirect Air Vents Under Cabinets

For the rest of the corner breakfast nook details, we found the score of the year with this secondhand banquette bench on Facebook Marketplace!

The dimensions fit this dining nook corner so perfectly, you’d think it was built custom!

I painted the banquette using my usual laminate furniture painting method. And for the custom cushions that came with the bench, I hired out a local upholstery shop to recover them with stain resistant fabric.

DIY Faux Marble Bistro Table

Tutorial | How to Make a Faux Marble Dining Table

Because the dimensions of this space were so long and narrow, I couldn’t find a table with the correct dimensions anywhere, and I certainly couldn’t find one with pedestal legs to fit beside banquette seating.

So we built this table by using cast iron table legs and a faux marble laminate countertop. It was so easy and inexpensive!

I don’t have to worry about food staining real marble either (lookin’ at my messy children and their food throwing skills over here.)

Bifold French Doors

Tutorial | How to Turn Bifold Doors Into Double French Doors

One day, when we get to a real bonafide kitchen renovation, we will upgrade our doors in here to pocket doors to save space instead.

But these bifold French doors we’ve used in several places in our house do the job beautifully while elevating the look of a plain bifold door to something more traditional. I love that these frosted glass panes allow a little natural light into this windowless space from our adjoining laundry room.

Dining Chairs

Tutorial | How to Reupholster Dining Chairs

Since we still needed dining chairs positioned on the other side of the banquette bench, I found these bamboo style chairs for a steal on Facebook Marketplace.

It was such a simple 1-day project just by spray painting the chair frames black and recovering the chair seat cushions with the same fabric I used on the bench. I can’t sew worth anything, but stapling fabric to chair cushions is a cinch.

Antique Art

Tutorial | How to Find Free Art Online in Public Domain Archives

Printable | Free Oil Painting Kitchen Art Prints

I love finding beautiful antique art in public domain archives. This oil painting image was perfect to print and place inside of a thrifted picture frame!

Batten Wall

Tutorial | Inexpensive DIY Batten Wall Using Lattice Strips

We managed to add a board and batten wall for just $80 using lattice strips! It was so quick and easy and makes for the perfect beginner carpentry project if you’ve ever wanted to start.

The batten wall molding is subtle but it adds just enough dimension and character to give this corner breakfast nook an extra dose of vintage charm.

Lighting

Just about the only thing we didn’t make or build ourselves in this breakfast nook is the lighting.

This linear chandelier was just skinny enough to work perfectly over our narrow dining table. And these vintage style sconces provided much needed extra light to brighten up this windowless corner.

I will share all of the sources, paint colors, and budget breakdown in a separate post soon if you want to know more details because it’s a LOT of information to pack into one post.

I can’t get over how cozy everything is in this cute small space corner breakfast nook! We can fit so many more people around this table now, and the traffic flow in this space finally makes sense.

The herringbone floors make this little room feel so classic and quaint. There is no way that old tile floor could have made this space come together as well as this wood look LVP floor.

Kitchen Refresh Before and After

Walking past the corner breakfast nook into the kitchen, I cannot get over the massive difference in this kitchen facelift just by doing a few cosmetic changes!

I’m so totally in love with the herringbone flooring pattern in this space. The layout of this kitchen with the stovetop in the peninsula has never really been my favorite.

Popping cooking grease hitting people sitting on the bar stools, the narrow walkway between our fridge and peninsula countertop always creating a traffic jam, and the large open wasted space in the middle has never made sense to me.

But using the open space as a design feature opportunity for this pretty herringbone pattern has changed my attitude about it from an appearance standpoint.

(P.S. Robert and I make really awkward models. Haha! We don’t get in front of a camera often because we just crack up and make weird faces at each other the whole time.)

Over the years, we’ve made a lot of little changes to create a kitchen facelift without any demo. And they’ve all added up to become as close of a nod toward a cottagecore style kitchen as we can manage without sacrificing much storage space, budget, or modern convenience.

Painted Kitchen Cabinets

Source | Green Kitchen Cabinet Inspiration

I painted these kitchen cabinets 4 years ago in July when I was 7 months pregnant with Regan, and I definitely do not recommend. Ha! I think I almost died from back spasms and heat stroke.

But the end result is something I still absolutely love to this day.

I chose the deep green lower cabinets to work with the existing slightly green tone leathered granite countertops that were already here from the previous owners when we moved in.

It’s truly a mark of a great timeless design choice since I still wouldn’t change a thing about the colors in here.

DIY Pressed “Tin” Kitchen Backsplash

Tutorial | DIY Pressed Tin Kitchen Backsplash

We used this PVC pressed tin style paneling on the existing tile backsplash just after we moved in as a no-demo quick cover up solution, and it still looks perfect 5 years later!

I think it’s one of the cheapest, fastest home improvement projects we’ve ever done. And because the design is so clean and simple, it feels less busy and cluttered than it did in this kitchen before.

Our style has evolved quite a bit since that backsplash install day 5 years ago, but we’ve always craved for this kitchen to feel vintage and cozy.

Lighting

We still have a gigantic florescent flush mount light fixture in this kitchen to eventually rip out one day (not looking forward to that), but this brass mini pendant light we installed over the kitchen sink is so quaint!

Faucet

Since the old nickel faucet broke and we really wanted a brushed brass faucet anyway, we replaced it with this modern pull-down faucet to look a little more streamlined.

Hardware

It was the smallest change, but we swapped out the brushed nickel hardware on the cabinets to these aged brass knobs and cup pulls instead. That one change made this kitchen feel instantly warmer and time-worn.

Reeded Glass Cabinet Fronts

Tutorial | Window Film Ideas to Create Decorative Glass Around Your Home for Less

One of the things I really liked in this kitchen when we moved in was the leaded glass in the corner cabinets. But one tragically met its demise and broke last year, so we went with a slightly modern yet still vintage style of reeded glass instead.

Kitchen Shelves

If you look really closely in the “before” shot of this kitchen, you can see an arched shamrock detail on this shelf that we could not wait to cut right off.

Robert took a jig saw to it one day, and you’d really never be able to tell.

We figured out this shelf is actually concealing an old doorway leading into our laundry room on the other side of this wall that used to be a porch.

We have big plans for it when we get to a big kitchen remodel one day, but that’s a story for much later. Old houses are quirky, right?

Pantry Cabinets

Tutorial | DIY Pantry Cabinets

This big blank wall was massive wasted space. Since our house does not have a dedicated pantry and we desperately needed one, we added this standalone cabinets and I painted and jazzed up with antique mirror window film to conceal food storage behind the glass.

It bounces the light from the opposite window above our kitchen sink so well to make this windowless side of the kitchen seem bigger and brighter.

All in all, we are so happy with this kitchen despite eventually wanting to fix a lot of larger, complex issues in a full remodel.

That is likely years down the road as we still have an addition to build taking space out of our garage while shifting around our laundry room.

But this kitchen facelift that we’ve been chipping away at over the years has allowed us to love this space working around what we have.

It’s even more proof to me that creating a space where you feel peace and rejuvenation is worth the initial hard work.

It’s okay if it takes time; it’s okay if you can’t afford a $100,000 remodel; and it’s okay if you make mistakes along the way. Home wasn’t built in a day. In the process of transforming these rooms, these rooms have transformed us!

Cosmetically, I’m so in love with the look now, and these herringbone LVP floors were exactly what this space was missing all along!

If we do end up keeping this kitchen the way it is for decades to come, I’m totally confident this durable floor will stand up to the challenge.

Final Breakfast Nook and Kitchen Facelift

Sources | Decor and Budget Breakdown in the Breakfast Nook

Sources | Decor and Budget Breakdown in the Kitchen

So that’s it! We’re so totally in love with this kitchen and breakfast nook that our family spends so much time in.

The process has been 5 years in the making, but we finally feel like it’s “done”. It was the decision to install the ProCore Floors LVP flooring that really pulled it all together and gave us the push we needed to finish.

In hindsight, I wouldn’t change a single thing about the trial and error in this breakfast nook or all of the sweat equity we put into it.

Because it was all a slow journey that we were able to do 95% of the way with just our own two hands, it created an even happier place for me.

I look around and think in disbelief, “We did this! WE did this!” And that alone is rewarding enough.

More Kitchen Ideas

Do you have any kitchen projects you’ve done in your own house and loved?

Or better yet, I’d love to see your kitchen projects in the Bless’er House Decorating Ideas Facebook Share Group! You can stop in any time to get ideas, ask questions, or share your own success stories.

• DIY Whitewashed Faux Brick Backsplash
• How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets Like a Pro
• How to Install a Herringbone LVP Floating Floor Over Tile
• The Best Boob Light Replacement Fixtures for All Budgets
• The Good, Bad and Ugly of Concrete Countertops
• Simplified Decorating: How to Decorate Kitchen Countertops

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