The Beautiful Kitchen Makeover in a Manufactured Home

Picture your retirement quickly approaching. Now picture the location of where you want your house to be during your retirement years. Our soon-to-be-retired customer, Sylvia wanted to live a simpler, serene and, less stress-filled life. She knew that we are only retired once! So, she decided to make a smart choice.

Sylvia knew that renting or buying a traditional stick-built home may seem like a good idea, however it could definitely be extremely pricey. She felt a mobile home, which normally is smaller, and therefore requires far less maintenance would be the best option for her. Top quality manufactured homes rarely ever cost above $100,000 to buy. In this way, manufactured housing ownership is significantly more affordable than buying a traditional home.

Sylvia felt downsizing to a mobile home park was a brilliant way for her to succeed in her goal of a simpler lifestyle. So, during the summer of 2021, Sylvia purchased a three-bedroom, two bath manufactured home, with an open floor plan including the living, dining, and kitchen in the friendliest little mobile home park.

Sunrise Mobile Home Park is an active 55+ park located in Arcadia, Florida. Arcadia is a small town with many antique shops to stroll through. After a fun day of shopping, you can visit one of the cafes, a tea room, or perhaps an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. Sunrise is less than an hour from Siesta Key Beach. The Sunrise community is small, clean, comfortable, and very friendly ~ with only 86 lots. Residents in this community truly look after one another. Everyone is like family.

This mobile home park has plenty of amenities: a heated swimming pool, shuffleboard courts, horseshoe courts, billiard room, coin laundry with clotheslines, centralized mail delivery, community gas BBQ with a covered picnic areas, and a shower facility for RV residents. They offer a fully stocked clubhouse that includes a lending library, board games, and jigsaw puzzles that residents may checkout and return at their convenience.

Owning a double wide manufactured home was a dream comes true for Sylvia. But that didn’t mean it was all sunshine and roses. The exterior quality was in a very high-quality condition, but not so much for the interior. The interior of the house was in pretty bad shape. Sylvia bought a cigarette smoker’s house. The previous owner’s mother had lived in the home for many years before she passed away. The woman had been a heavy smoker. If the smell of cigarette smoke makes you recoil, you’re not alone, Sylvia felt the same way. That smell of cigarettes long past isn’t, in fact, just a smell, it’s a residue called thirdhand smoke (THS). The lingering odor isn’t just unpleasant; studies have also linked it to cancer.

On top of cigarette smoke, the previous tenant was an irresponsible cat owner who didn’t change out the cat litter, and unfortunately the cat urinated throughout the home. Sylvia described an awful stench of high ammonia (which is indicative of cat urine) everywhere when she first walked through the home. So why, after seeing all these problems, did Sylvia buy this house? Answer: she saw so much potential.

So, when it came time to get rid of cigarette and cat urine odor, it wasn’t easy since they both seeped into every crevice of this home. Sylvia hired someone to remove the wall-to-wall carpeting and all the baseboards throughout. She replaced some of the walls with new drywall. She also had new baseboards and wood-look luxury vinyl flooring installed. Sylvia used the same flooring throughout to create a clean, continuous appearance. The homeowner chose vinyl floor tile in a pattern made to mimic the look of wood planks. “The best part about it is that its waterproof, pet-proof, everything-proof,” Sylvia said. “It’s super durable. And budget-friendly.” She splurged just a little, by having ceiling crown mouldings installed. She hired someone to paint the interior, but she took the challenge of painting the crown mouldings herself. Some of this work was in progress by the time I came into the picture.

So by the time Sylvia called me she knew exactly what she wanted: the same layout updated with clean, new finishes. She had some pretty exciting plans for the house, but wanted to keep the same kitchen footprint. However, she wanted to lower the pony wall to keep the countertop all one level. The reason Sylvia wanted the counter height option was because it would feel more open to the adjoining living room. The plumbing to the sink and dishwasher is nestled inside this pony wall, however didn’t pose a problem.

Over the years some of our customers have had a difficult time choosing colors for their cabinetry. When it comes to picking out what stain color to use for a project, there are many different wood stain colors to choose from in today’s market. For some customers it can be overwhelming. But our wonderful, down-to-earth client knew exactly what she wanted.

The cabinetry we used was Shaker-style from Aspect Cabinetry. With this cabinetry line we had the opportunity to meet the budget and provide exactly what Sylvia wanted. The cabinets are made from American Poplar wood, with a Bayou stained finish. Remember when selecting a brown stain for your kitchen, it doesn’t need to be dark brown.

The white “Tapioca Pearl” by LG Hausys solid surface countertop looks stunning with the warm brown cabinets. Sylvia wanted a full-height backsplash made from the same countertop material. This white countertop, as well as the white backsplash, created a bridging color between the brown upper and lower cabinets.

The medium-tone brown floor completed the whole look. This color scheme delivered an open, light-filled space room. Because this is basically an open kitchen, the colors are perfect. To add more accents, new stainless-steel appliances were installed. This kitchen rocks!

Sylvia used the same color of cabinets and countertops for her two bathrooms. Just Counters & other stuff, inc. team: Ben Hanson and Tyler Mowatt completed all three rooms and they turned out great! You guys did some truly brilliant work! Thank you for being the dream team and for acing the projects. Your hard work has helped our company reach new heights. Keep it up!