This post is proudly sponsored by ProCore Floors, whose innovative products made this stunning transformation possible.

Stunning Kitchen & Breakfast Nook Refresh: Our Herringbone LVP Flooring Transformation on a Budget

Today feels like Christmas morning in our home! We are absolutely thrilled to finally unveil the dramatic before-and-after of our corner breakfast nook and kitchen refresh. What makes this transformation even more remarkable is that we achieved it with a mostly “no-demo” approach, proving that significant change doesn’t always require tearing everything down. The difference is truly astonishing, and we can’t wait to share all the details of how we brought new life into these beloved spaces.

These two connected rooms in our home required a myriad of thoughtful details and DIY projects. To keep this post focused on the grand reveal and the star of our renovation – the flooring – we’ll share a comprehensive budget breakdown and a detailed timeline of all individual project tutorials in separate upcoming blog posts. This will allow us to dive deeper into the specifics of each element that contributed to this cohesive new look.

Breakfast Nook Sources & Budget Breakdown

Kitchen Sources & Budget Breakdown

Our journey to this stunning refresh involved a blend of savvy shopping, creative problem-solving, and a lot of elbow grease. We scoured Facebook Marketplace for unique finds, drew inspiration from various breakfast nook ideas, and embraced “non-demo out-of-the-box thinking” to optimize the existing structure. This approach allowed us to work with what we had, minimizing costly and time-consuming demolition. Of course, a significant amount of paint played a crucial role in updating the aesthetic.

However, the single most impactful change that unified and elevated both spaces was the installation of these absolutely gorgeous herringbone luxury vinyl plank floors from ProCore Floors, readily available at Lowe’s. The transformation they brought is nothing short of miraculous.

Now that the project is complete, I find myself repeatedly wondering, “Why on earth didn’t we cover that old, dated tile with these stunning floors sooner?!” The rich, dark wood tones of the Brookewood color provide a beautiful foundation, expertly grounding both the breakfast nook and kitchen areas. This striking contrast has the unexpected benefit of making our entire home feel more expansive and thoughtfully designed. While we opted for the deep warmth of Brookewood, the lighter Ashewood color is also an exquisite choice, perfect for those aiming for a more modern, bright, and airy ambiance.

Corner Breakfast Nook: A Transformed Space

For five long years, our breakfast nook area presented a significant design challenge, leaving me stumped repeatedly. I vividly recall countless mental redecorating sessions, trying to figure out how to optimize its inherently small size and awkward traffic flow. No matter how many layouts I envisioned, nothing truly clicked. Then, one day, Robert had a brilliant “light bulb moment,” suggesting, “What if we just moved a door?” This seemingly simple question unlocked the potential we had been missing all along, radically altering the space’s functionality and appeal.

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

Initially, we envisioned our corner breakfast nook and kitchen renovation as a distant, multi-year plan, likely coinciding with a full kitchen gut remodel. This extensive project would have involved ripping out all the connecting old tile floors, which had long been a persistent slipping hazard for our family. My cousin, mother-in-law, and even our daughters had all experienced falls on this treacherous tile at various times, especially when tracking in water from our backyard pool. Replacing that tile became a top priority, but the daunting prospect of demolition—involving expensive, time-consuming, and messy removal of the tile, mesh, and mud bed—seemed beyond our current capabilities and budget.

That’s when we made a pivotal discovery: we could simply FLOAT these magnificent ProCore Floors herringbone luxury vinyl planks directly on top of the old tile! This ingenious solution instantly addressed a multitude of our flooring concerns, checking off numerous boxes on our essential “must-have” list. The DIY-friendly installation process and the unparalleled durability of LVP flooring were the primary factors that truly sealed the deal for us.

DIY Tutorial: For a step-by-step guide, you can refer to our detailed post on how to install a herringbone LVP vinyl floor over tile.

Key Benefits of LVP Flooring:

• Waterproof: Ideal for kitchens, bathrooms, and homes with pool access, providing peace of mind against spills and moisture.
• Stain Resistant: Effortlessly repels common household stains, maintaining its pristine appearance even in high-traffic areas.
• Scratch Resistant: Built to withstand daily wear and tear from pets, kids, and furniture, keeping your floors looking new longer.
• Highly Durable: Designed for longevity, LVP can endure years of heavy use without losing its structural integrity or aesthetic appeal.
• Low Maintenance: Simple to clean and care for, requiring minimal effort to keep it looking fantastic.
• Better Sound Absorption: Offers improved acoustics compared to many hard flooring types, contributing to a quieter, more comfortable home environment.
• Kid and Pet Friendly: Specifically engineered to stand up to the rigors of active families and furry friends, making it a practical choice for busy households.
• Easier to Install: Significantly less complex and labor-intensive to install than traditional tile or hardwood, making it a perfect DIY project.

Our confidence in ProCore Floors LVP stems from previous experience. Last year, we successfully installed a different pattern, the Meadow Oak luxury vinyl planks, in our neighbors’ rec room makeover. Witnessing how incredibly well they held up and how straightforward the installation was made it an easy decision to bring this reliable and beautiful flooring into our own home.

When to Install Floating Vinyl Flooring Over Tile

While installing a luxury vinyl plank floating floor is an incredibly practical and transformative solution, it’s important to acknowledge that it’s not always the ideal choice for every situation. Generally, removing old flooring before installing new is best practice to ensure a perfect subfloor. However, many homeowners, like us, face realities where starting from scratch isn’t feasible due to budget limitations, time constraints, or the sheer inconvenience of living in a construction zone. In such cases, a floating LVP floor becomes an excellent, cost-effective, and rapid solution to cover up an eyesore and introduce a significant upgrade.

Key Situations to Consider an LVP Floating Floor:

• DIY Installation is a Priority: When you desire a flooring option that you can confidently install yourself, saving on professional labor costs.
• Budget or Liveability Constraints Prevent Old Floor Removal: When demolishing your current flooring is impractical due to financial limitations or the need to maintain a livable home environment during renovation.
• Hardwood Aesthetics without Sacrificing Durability: If you love the timeless look of hardwood but require a flooring material that offers superior resistance to moisture, scratches, and everyday wear.
• Seeking a Low-Maintenance Solution: For busy households that need a floor that is easy to clean, highly stain-resistant, and requires minimal upkeep.
• Budget-Friendly Upgrade is Essential: ProCore LVP flooring, for example, offers incredible value, starting at an accessible price point of $1.19 per square foot, making a high-end look achievable on a modest budget.

It’s now been over a month since we completed the installation of these stunning herringbone LVP floors, and our satisfaction couldn’t be higher. We are absolutely delighted with how effortless they are to clean, maintaining their pristine beauty with minimal effort. Critically, we’ve also found them to be significantly less slippery than our old tile, which means I no longer constantly worry about water spills, especially with children and a pool nearby.

The Cozy Corner Banquette

Tutorial: Learn how we achieved this look with our guide to a Corner Banquette Makeover and How to Redirect Air Vents Under Cabinets.

For the other elements of our corner breakfast nook, the absolute score of the year was undoubtedly finding this secondhand banquette bench on Facebook Marketplace! It felt like fate, as its dimensions fit this dining nook corner so incredibly perfectly, one might think it was custom-built just for our space. I transformed the banquette by painting it using my trusted laminate furniture painting method, giving it a fresh, updated look. For the custom cushions that came with the bench, I made the smart decision to hire a local upholstery shop to recover them with a durable, stain-resistant fabric, ensuring both beauty and practicality for our busy family.

DIY Faux Marble Bistro Table

Tutorial: Discover how to create your own with our guide, How to Make a Faux Marble Dining Table.

Given the long and narrow dimensions of our breakfast nook, finding a dining table with the exact right proportions, especially one with pedestal legs to accommodate banquette seating, proved to be an impossible task through traditional retail. This challenge led us to embrace a DIY solution: we built this charming bistro table ourselves! We combined sturdy cast iron table legs with a beautiful faux marble laminate countertop. The process was surprisingly easy, incredibly inexpensive, and the result is perfectly tailored to our space. An added bonus? I don’t have to fret about food stains on real marble – a major win when dealing with messy eaters and their impressive food-throwing skills!

Elegant Bifold French Doors

Tutorial: Transform your own with our guide, How to Turn Bifold Doors Into Double French Doors.

While our long-term vision for a full kitchen renovation includes upgrading to space-saving pocket doors, for now, these bifold French doors serve as a fantastic interim solution. We’ve successfully utilized this DIY door transformation in several areas of our house, and it consistently elevates the look of a plain bifold door to something far more traditional and elegant. I particularly love how the frosted glass panes allow a soft diffusion of natural light into this otherwise windowless space, connecting it beautifully to our adjoining laundry room.

Chic Dining Chairs

Tutorial: Revamp your seating with our guide, How to Reupholster Dining Chairs.

With the banquette bench handling one side of the dining area, we still needed traditional dining chairs for the opposite side. Fortuitously, I stumbled upon these charming bamboo-style chairs at an incredible steal on Facebook Marketplace. Their transformation was a remarkably simple, single-day DIY project: we spray-painted the chair frames a sophisticated black and then recovered the seat cushions with the very same stain-resistant fabric used on the banquette. Though I admit my sewing skills are nonexistent, stapling fabric to chair cushions is an absolute cinch, making this an easy and satisfying update!

Timeless Antique Art

Tutorial: Learn the secret to finding free wall art online with our guide, How to Find Free Art Online in Public Domain Archives.

Printable: Access beautiful art for your kitchen with our Free Oil Painting Kitchen Art Prints.

One of my favorite ways to infuse vintage charm into our home is by discovering beautiful antique art within public domain archives. This particular oil painting image was an ideal find, which we simply printed and then framed within a charming, thrifted picture frame. This simple yet impactful detail adds a layer of history and elegance to our breakfast nook, creating a focal point that feels both sophisticated and personal.

Charming Batten Wall

Tutorial: Create your own with our guide, Inexpensive DIY Batten Wall Using Lattice Strips.

We successfully installed a beautiful board and batten wall for an incredibly modest budget of just $80, by creatively utilizing lattice strips! This project was remarkably quick and easy, making it an ideal introductory carpentry endeavor for anyone looking to dip their toes into DIY home improvements. The batten wall molding, subtle yet impactful, adds just the right amount of dimension and architectural character, lending our corner breakfast nook an extra dose of timeless vintage charm that truly completes the space.

Thoughtful Lighting Solutions

Almost every element in this breakfast nook, from the banquette to the table, was a hands-on DIY project, except for the lighting. We carefully selected our fixtures to perfectly complement the space. This sleek linear chandelier proved to be just slender enough to fit gracefully over our narrow dining table, providing ample light without overwhelming the space. Additionally, these charming vintage-style sconces were a much-needed addition, offering essential extra illumination to brighten up this naturally windowless corner, creating a warm and inviting glow.

As mentioned earlier, a dedicated post will soon be available detailing all the specific sources, exact paint colors, and a comprehensive budget breakdown for these rooms. There’s simply too much information to pack into a single article!

I am utterly captivated by how cozy and inviting every aspect of this cute, small corner breakfast nook has become. We can now comfortably seat many more people around this table, and the traffic flow in the space finally feels logical and effortless. The striking herringbone floors play a crucial role, imbuing this little room with a sense of classic elegance and quaint charm. It’s hard to imagine that the old tile floor could have ever brought such cohesion and character to the space as this wood-look LVP floor has so beautifully accomplished.

Kitchen Refresh: A Transformed Hearth of the Home

Transitioning from the charming corner breakfast nook into the kitchen, the sheer magnitude of the difference achieved through a few strategic cosmetic changes is breathtaking. I find myself utterly enchanted by the dynamic herringbone flooring pattern in this space. The original layout of our kitchen, with the stovetop awkwardly positioned in the peninsula, has always been a point of contention for me. It led to cooking grease splattering on bar stool occupants, a perpetually narrow bottleneck between the fridge and peninsula creating frustrating traffic jams, and a large, oddly open, wasted space in the center that never quite made sense functionally.

However, by utilizing that previously perplexing open space as a design opportunity to showcase this captivating herringbone pattern, my entire perspective on the kitchen’s appearance has shifted. It now feels intentional and stylish. (P.S. Robert and I are notoriously awkward models! We rarely step in front of the camera because we inevitably end up cracking up and making silly faces at each other the whole time, making for some truly un-posed, authentic shots.)

Over the years, we’ve meticulously implemented a series of smaller cosmetic changes to achieve this kitchen facelift, all without any major demolition. These gradual updates have collectively cultivated a kitchen that closely embodies a charming cottagecore style, all while smartly preserving essential storage space, adhering to our budget, and maintaining modern conveniences. It’s a testament to how small, deliberate choices can accumulate into a significant, cohesive transformation.

Artfully Painted Kitchen Cabinets

Source: Find inspiration with our Green Kitchen Cabinet Inspiration.

I originally painted these kitchen cabinets four years ago in July, a rather ambitious undertaking as I was seven months pregnant with Regan at the time. I definitely do not recommend tackling such a project in that condition – I think I nearly succumbed to back spasms and heat stroke! However, despite the arduous process, the end result is something I continue to absolutely adore to this day. I deliberately chose deep green for the lower cabinets, specifically to harmonize with the existing slightly green-toned leathered granite countertops that came with the house. This choice has proven to be a truly timeless design decision, as I wouldn’t change a single detail about the colors in here.

DIY Pressed “Tin” Kitchen Backsplash

Tutorial: Create your own with our guide, DIY Pressed Tin Kitchen Backsplash.

Soon after we moved in, we used these ingenious PVC pressed tin style panels directly over the existing tile backsplash as a brilliant no-demo, quick cover-up solution. Five years later, and it still looks absolutely perfect! This project stands out as one of the cheapest and fastest home improvement endeavors we’ve ever completed. The clean and simple design of the backsplash ensures the kitchen feels less busy and cluttered than it did before, contributing to a more serene and organized atmosphere. Our style has certainly evolved quite a bit since that backsplash installation day half a decade ago, but our consistent desire has always been for this kitchen to exude a warm, vintage, and cozy feel.

Updated Kitchen Lighting

While we still contend with a gigantic fluorescent flush-mount light fixture in the kitchen that we plan to eventually tackle (definitely not looking forward to that!), the small but mighty changes have made a big impact. This charming brass mini pendant light we installed over the kitchen sink is an absolute delight. Its quaint design adds a touch of sophisticated vintage flair, providing much-needed task lighting and warmth to this functional area.

Streamlined Faucet Upgrade

When our old nickel faucet unfortunately broke, it presented the perfect opportunity to upgrade to something we had always wanted: a brushed brass faucet. We replaced it with this elegant modern pull-down faucet. The new faucet not only functions beautifully but also offers a more streamlined and sophisticated aesthetic, complementing the evolving style of our kitchen perfectly. It’s a small change that made a noticeable difference in both form and function.

Aged Brass Hardware

It might seem like the smallest detail, but swapping out the old brushed nickel hardware on our cabinets for these exquisite aged brass knobs and cup pulls made an astonishing impact. This single change instantly infused our kitchen with a sense of warmth, character, and a beautifully time-worn aesthetic. It’s a perfect example of how minor adjustments can significantly alter the overall feel and style of a space.

Elegant Reeded Glass Cabinet Fronts

Tutorial: Explore creative window film ideas with our guide, Window Film Ideas to Create Decorative Glass Around Your Home for Less.

When we first moved into this kitchen, I was particularly fond of the leaded glass details in the corner cabinets. However, one tragically met its demise and broke last year. Rather than trying to replicate the exact look, we opted for a slightly more modern yet still distinctly vintage style: reeded glass. This choice maintains an elegant, classic feel while adding a fresh textural element that perfectly complements our evolving kitchen aesthetic. It allows for obscured views while still letting light pass through, offering both beauty and practicality.

Revamped Kitchen Shelves

If you examine the “before” shot of this kitchen closely, you’ll notice an unfortunate arched shamrock detail on a particular shelf—a feature we couldn’t wait to eliminate. One day, Robert bravely took a jigsaw to it, and honestly, you would never be able to tell it was ever there. Through this renovation, we also discovered that this very shelf cleverly conceals an old doorway. This doorway once led into our laundry room on the other side of the wall, which originally served as a porch. We have grand plans for this area during a future, comprehensive kitchen remodel, but that’s a story for much later. Old houses certainly come with their quirks and hidden histories, don’t they?

Functional Pantry Cabinets

Tutorial: Build your own with our guide, DIY Pantry Cabinets.

This substantial blank wall in our kitchen represented a massive area of wasted space. Since our house lacked a dedicated pantry, and we desperately needed more food storage, we decided to install these standalone cabinets. I then painted them and dressed them up with antique mirror window film, ingeniously concealing the pantry contents behind the glass while adding a touch of vintage glamour. This reflective film bounces light beautifully from the opposite window above our kitchen sink, making this naturally windowless side of the kitchen feel significantly bigger and brighter, an essential element in maximizing a smaller space.

All in all, despite our eventual desire for a full remodel to address some larger, more complex structural issues, we are incredibly pleased with this current kitchen facelift. That comprehensive renovation is likely years down the road, as we first plan to build an addition, reconfiguring our garage space and relocating our laundry room. However, the incremental improvements we’ve diligently chipped away at over the years have allowed us to truly love and appreciate this space, working creatively with what we currently have.

This journey further reinforces my belief that investing the initial hard work into creating a space where you feel peace and rejuvenation is profoundly worthwhile. It’s perfectly fine if the process takes time; it’s okay if a $100,000 remodel isn’t within reach; and it’s absolutely fine to make mistakes along the way. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a truly beloved home. In the fascinating process of transforming these rooms, we’ve found that these spaces have, in turn, transformed us.

Cosmetically, I am utterly smitten with the current look, and I can confidently say that these gorgeous herringbone LVP floors were precisely the missing element this space needed all along! If we happen to keep this kitchen exactly as it is for decades to come (which is certainly possible given our long-term renovation plans), I have absolute confidence that this durable and resilient flooring will stand up to every challenge with grace and beauty.

Final Breakfast Nook and Kitchen Facelift: Our Satisfying Journey

Sources: Explore more decor and budget details in our Decor and Budget Breakdown in the Breakfast Nook.

Sources: Find comprehensive details in our Decor and Budget Breakdown in the Kitchen.

So there it is – the full reveal! We are utterly enamored with this kitchen and breakfast nook, spaces where our family spends so much quality time. This entire process has truly been five years in the making, but with the completion of these updates, we finally feel like it’s definitively “done.” It was the crucial decision to install the ProCore Floors LVP flooring that truly pulled everything together, providing the final impetus we needed to complete this satisfying transformation.

In hindsight, I wouldn’t alter a single step of the trial and error we encountered in this breakfast nook, nor would I change the immense sweat equity we invested. This entire journey, undertaken slowly and deliberately, with approximately 95% of the work completed by our own two hands, has created an even happier and more cherished place for me. I look around and often find myself thinking in disbelief, “We did this! WE did this!” And that sense of proud accomplishment, born from dedication and effort, is a reward in itself.

More Kitchen Ideas & Inspiration

We absolutely love hearing from you! Do you have any kitchen projects you’ve tackled in your own home that you’ve particularly loved? We’d be thrilled to learn about your experiences and see your creations!

Even better, we invite you to share your kitchen projects, ask questions, or simply gather ideas and inspiration in the Bless’er House Decorating Ideas Facebook Share Group! It’s a wonderful community where you can connect with fellow home decor enthusiasts and celebrate your own success stories.

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