The before photo shows everything you’d expect from a 1980s builder kitchen: heavy soffit, white painted cabinets, oak-trim drawers, blue-gray slatted backsplash. The after photo is a calm, oak-and-anthracite Japandi kitchen that designers in the comments couldn’t find a single fault with. Same footprint. Same window. Almost nothing else in common.
The Transformation: Same Kitchen, Two Decades Apart
The before photo is recognizable to anyone who has walked through a 1980s American home. A tray ceiling with a heavy soffit running the perimeter. White painted upper cabinets with raised panels and dark hinges. Lower cabinets with mismatched oak sides. A blue-gray slatted backsplash that was probably called “modern” at some point. Tan floor tile bleeding through every visible foot of the room. Nothing was broken. Everything had aged.
The after photo is a calm, two-tone Japandi kitchen. Rift-sawn white oak uppers. Matte anthracite lowers. White quartz counters. A vertical ribbed white backsplash. A flat, soffit-free ceiling that adds visible vertical height to the whole room. The footprint is the same. The window is in the same place. Almost everything else is unrecognizable.
The homeowner, posting as chowwithchau, bought the home knowing the kitchen would be the first project. The comment section confirmed the result was worth it. A working kitchen designer in the thread left a four-word review:
Beautiful use of minimalism and functionality. No notes.
Defining the Style: What Is Japandi, Briefly
If the renovation is the answer, the style is the framework. Japandi is a hybrid of Japanese and Scandinavian design, two traditions that share more than they differ. Both lean on natural materials. Both prize minimalism. Both reject visual clutter in favor of carefully chosen pieces. Japandi takes the warmth and pale wood from Scandinavian design and grounds it with the darker, quieter restraint of Japanese interiors.
One commenter in the thread asked the question directly: “Is ‘Japandi’ a certain style?” Another user answered with the cleanest one-line definition we have seen: “Scandinavian mixed with Japanese minimalism. The idea is to blend the outside with the inside and keep it calm and minimal.” That is the entire philosophy in twenty-two words.
The Breakdown: 5 Things This Renovation Gets Right About Japandi
Plenty of kitchens claim the Japandi label and miss the mark, usually by leaning too far Scandinavian (which reads as IKEA showroom) or too far Japanese (which reads as cold and unwelcoming). This renovation lands in the middle, and it does so through five specific moves worth studying.
- The Two-Tone Cabinet Split: The upper cabinets are rift-sawn white oak. The lowers are matte anthracite, a deep near-black grey. This split is doing the entire stylistic heavy lift. Light wood on top keeps the room visually airy. Dark on the bottom grounds it and hides the wear that lower cabinets inevitably take. The homeowner confirmed the lowers are IKEA Nickebo matte anthracite fronts on an IKEA system. The uppers are custom rift-sawn white oak. Custom-looking, half catalog-sourced.
- The Vertical Ribbed Backsplash: Look closely at the backsplash. It is not flat subway tile. It is a vertical ribbed white tile, running floor-to-cabinet, that adds texture without color. This is one of the most Japandi-coded choices in the whole kitchen. The style relies on texture rather than visual pattern to keep surfaces from feeling sterile, and a ribbed white finish gives the eye something to land on without breaking the monochrome scheme.
- The Almost-Invisible Hardware: Cabinet pulls are tiny. Almost not there. On the matte anthracite lowers, the hardware is small black bar pulls that disappear into the door face. On the oak uppers, the pulls are even smaller, color-matched, and barely catch the eye. This is a deliberate Japandi move. Hardware is functional, not decorative. The fewer interruptions to the cabinet face, the more the natural materials do the talking.
- The Under-Cabinet Lighting: Several commenters asked specifically about this. The under-cabinet glow is doing real work in the photos, washing the backsplash with warm light and giving the lower workspace a soft, even cast. The homeowner identified them as IKEA MITTLED LED strips, which are inexpensive and very common, proving again that the Japandi look is more about styling judgment than premium hardware.
- The Quiet Use of a Single Plant: In the corner of the counter where the L-shape turns, there is one terracotta pot holding one architectural plant. That is the entire accessory program for the kitchen. No styled fruit bowl, no row of cookbooks, no curated objects. One plant, one pot, one corner.
This is the most Japandi thing in the kitchen, and it is the easiest one to copy at home. Japandi rooms are not under-decorated. They are decorated with restraint. The difference is intentional placement of very few things, rather than the accumulation of many.
The Honest Part: The One Thing the Homeowner Would Change
Not every choice in this renovation landed perfectly, and the homeowner was upfront about it in the comments. The black chimney range hood drew some respectful pushback from one Redditor, who pointed out that its boxy silhouette does not quite match the clean rectilinear logic of the rest of the kitchen. A black stainless flat-front hood, or something with texture, would tie the room together more cohesively.
The homeowner agreed and was transparent about why: dimensions ruled the decision. The space dictated the hood, and a flatter pro-style option would have been hard to clean given the proximity to surrounding cabinets. It’s a useful reminder that real renovations involve real tradeoffs, even on kitchens that photograph as flawless.
The Takeaway: How to Get the Japandi Look at Home
If you are renovating, planning, or just gathering ideas, the five principles below summarize what makes this kitchen work, in the order they matter most:
- Pick one natural wood and stick with it. Oak, ash, or pale walnut. The wood is the soul of the room. Mixing species reads as inconsistent and immediately breaks the Japandi calm.
- Use one accent color, and let it be dark. Black, charcoal, deep brown, or muted green. Apply it to lowers, hardware, or the hood, but only one of them. Two accent colors compete and undo the style.
- Choose texture over pattern. Ribbed tile, fluted panels, woven shades. These add depth without introducing color or visual noise. They are the Japandi shortcut to a finished-looking surface.
- Hide the hardware. Smaller is better. Color-matched is better. Push-to-open with no pulls at all is best of all if your budget allows.
- Style with restraint, never with fill. One plant. One bowl. One framed thing. Empty counter space is a feature in Japandi, not a problem to solve.
The reason this Japandi kitchen photographs so well is not the budget. It is the discipline. Every visible decision was made to reduce visual noise rather than add it. That is the entire style, in one sentence.
Shop the Look: Where Everything Came From
The homeowner answered nearly every sourcing question in the Reddit comments. Here is the full list, pulled from her replies:
| Lower cabinet fronts | IKEA Nickebo, matte anthracite |
| Upper cabinet fronts | Rift-sawn white oak (custom) |
| Cabinet system | IKEA, all-drawer lowers |
| Under-cabinet lights | IKEA MITTLED LED |
| Backsplash | Vertical ribbed white tile |
| Range hood | Black chimney style (dimension-driven) |
The most useful thing about this kitchen, for anyone trying to do the same, is that almost none of the pieces are bespoke. The cabinet system is IKEA. The lower fronts are IKEA. The under-cabinet lights are IKEA. The look is custom. The parts list isn’t. What turns it into Japandi is the editing: one wood, one dark accent, no visible hardware, one plant, and a soffit removed to let the rest of it breathe.
Images and original post by u/chowwithchau on r/kitchenremodel. View the original thread here. Shared with credit. Cabinet fronts are IKEA Nickebo (anthracite) and custom rift-sawn white oak; under-cabinet lights are IKEA MITTLED.
