Orange County Condo Remodel: Custom Kitchen & Vaulted Ceilings

Project Highlights

A Condo Remodel Built Around a Deadline

This Orange County condo was being prepared to sell, which meant every line on the estimate had to earn its place against what it would add to the listing. The layout was never the problem, so nothing was moved and nothing structural was touched. What dated the unit was the surfaces. The ceilings came first, because heavy texture across a vaulted open plan does more to age a room than anything else in it, so the texture was scraped off and the ceiling was re-boarded, taped and floated smooth from the living room through to the kitchen. The kitchen is the clearest example of how the rest of the budget was handled. The cabinets were sound, so rather than quote a tear-out, the crew sanded them back, primed them and repainted them. The client got a kitchen that reads as current for a fraction of what new cabinetry would have cost, and without the weeks of lead time that would have held up the listing. A full repaint in one light neutral tied the whole unit together.

From Honey Oak and Textured Ceilings to a Light, Current Condo

The original unit was not in bad condition, it was simply of its era. Yellowed walls, honey oak cabinets and trim, a brass chandelier over the dining nook and heavy texture across every ceiling were doing more to date the place than anything structural. Stripping the ceilings back, carrying one neutral through the whole unit and replacing the cabinetry fronts and fixtures changed the character of the condo without changing a single wall.

The Same Kitchen Footprint, Rebuilt in White and Granite

The kitchen kept its walls, its window, its pass-through into the living room and its cabinets. Pulling out honey oak cabinetry that was still sound would have been the expensive answer to a problem that was really about colour and finish, so the doors and boxes were sanded back, primed and repainted white instead. The difference in the room comes from that and from the ceiling above it, where the old texture and the dark oak framing around the light panel gave way to a flat white surface that bounces far more light onto the counters. On a unit heading to market, that is the decision that mattered. The kitchen photographs like a remodel and cost a fraction of one.

Why Denali?

Removed two non-bearing walls and reinforced the ceiling with a 24-foot LVL beam to open the original galley kitchen into the dining and family rooms. New white oak cabinetry, honed marble counters, and a 48-inch range anchor the space.