A very simple kitchen with an L layout - about $7,000

This is a small kitchen, but it has plenty of counter space, and an efficient L layout, The huge drawers provide quite a bit of storage. Most important, it's a pleasure to cook in. We did it in two phases. On the first go round, we did the basic layout, including the drawer bases either side of the sink, the trash/compost unit by the stove. The cabinet to the right of the stove was open shelves with a varnished plywood counter.

We used a bunch of ideas to keep costs down without sacrificing function. We saved a sink and faucet from another project. The linoleum for the sink counter was also left over. The drawers use the metabox ™ drawer system, which gives a nice functional full extension drawer, while costing about $60 less per drawer. There were some temporary open shelves on the wall. The wood is Eastern White Pine. This phase cost about $4,000.

When more funds became available a year later, we added another drawer base on the left, the nice dish drainer and shelves on the wall. We also built pullout drawers to fill in the base cabinet to the right of the stove, and replaced the plywood counter there with another butcher block. That brought the total project to about $7,000 finished and installed. Later we'll build a pantry, and maybe put doors under the sink.