zonabutt So I loved baking when I was little, I remember watching bbc food in awe. My mum bought me my first cooking books. Those generic ones with really bad untested recipes, one was called chocolates, and another cakes. Lol. I tried every single recipe, failed but never gave up. I just loveddd baking and being in the kitchen and creating, fast forward on to mentoring 3 little minions, (my sisters) we all used to join in on the fun, me ordering them around, and they obediently complying. (They just wanted to lick the bowl to be honest).
Baking, the smell, the constant chai sessions, the cookies, the cakes, the desi meethas, the laughter. The kitchen was where you could find one or all of us, where we wiped each others tears, made fun of each other, made chai for each other, this very kitchen is where we made our memories. Then I got married and moved away and had kids and life happened. But my sisters, they were still in that kitchen and “Honey and Salt” was born after much encouragement and requests from friends and family.. (I came up with the name and my uber talented sister Amal came up with the design).
My sisters Zinnoor and Aima solely run the show now that another one of us is married and moved away. I am so so proud of them and my heart swells up and feels all warm and tingly when I look at their page. They are doing so well, Alhamdulillah AND they are completely self taught! Now that’s saying something. They started this as a side gig whilst juggling studying and lawyer-ing (is that a word?)
But enough about them, you can check their page out below if you want to learn more, onwards to the interior side of things.
Since they had a shop now, the kitchen, due to the sheer amount of usage was looking pretty sad.
It didn’t reflect them and brought the overall mood down. When we first moved into this house, my father had these custom pure wood cabinets made, very expensive, great quality but they had aged and definitely looked so.
One of the reasons why the kitchen hadn’t seen any updates in almost 20 years was because my father loved the wooden cabinets, and of course, money. If it was functioning (even if barely so) why change it? Why waste money?
I was given the task to update it, so after a lot of hard work I convinced my father to let us paint them. It kept the cabinets and their design intact so happy baba yayyy and it provided an easy update to the kitchen more suited the clients needs, so happy H n S! I chose a deep teal, we actually mixed a few colors to get the perfect tone.
Dark Night would be the closest thing to it. But Moscow midnight is a nice alternate too. Both by Sherwin Williams
If they ever wanted the wood look back they could sand it and finish it accordingly. The black granite had broken due to plumbing issues that was replaced by this beautiful white stone, I wanted the Calcutta Marble look but without the price. We decided to keep the back splash, there just wasn’t any space in the budget to replace it, so we painted over it instead! A simple easy hack!
The finishing just had to be gold, of course. Just a little bit of understated glam. The original cabinets had the wooden handles which were exchanged for the gold pulls. A beautiful gold faucet over the sink and I finished off with a vintage rug.
The space was then styled with everything that they actually USED. No unused lemons in beautiful wooden bowls, and gorgeous eucalyptus leaves in jars (though I LOVE THEM). But the truth is they needed the space in practical condition asap to get back to their orders and so that was exactly what was done.
BEFORE
These are the closest pictures I have of the kitchen , there are two kitchens in the house and the current kitchen below looks exactly the same as the one I redid only has a different layout and the tiles were different but this will give you a good idea of the before:
Black granite tops 
Wooden cabinets 
The tiles upstairs were larger and with a bigger pattern 
Wooden handles
And this is during:
And finally IMMEDIATELY AFTER :
I did not buy a single thing for the styling, we were trying to be very budget friendly and I was requested to have the most commonly used things within easy access. Thus the cups and mugs they use for styling their insta photos hang right under the cabinets, charming old dinghy used measuring cups next to where the kitchen aid is plugged in when in use. Wooden cutting boards used for chopping chocolate displayed outside within easy reach and perfect for styling! Its a bit much but this is real life, its not what you’ll see in perfectly styled interior spaces. But it looks beautiful yet still looks like it was used and it pretty much was being used while we were cleaning it and I was styling it. And that is what I’m all about!
Now lets have some chai while you scroll through these pretty images, shall we?
I put in the most used ones at the front, even though the newer ones looked prettier, because hey we live real here.
years old! But she won’t replace them for anything and neither would I let her lol
That plug sticking out is maddening, but oh well.
A few more pictures after a couple of months of usage:
Greenery always does wonders 
So what do you think? About the space and the chai! Let me know!
Love the teal kitchen! And that you kept the cabinets intact. Looks so good!
Yes! Never forget the old while embracing the new!
I love it Zona!! This is amazing and gives me so much inspiration!
Thank you so much! Yay!