We did A LOT of cleaning! But, once the grim was gone, we had a blank canvas to work with. I am not a natural decorator-- ask my husband haha. I love decorations, but sometimes my decorations look a bit cluttered. I have been a work-in-progress, but I finally realized that we could take our time with making the house our own. We are lucky in that there was nothing "major" we had to remodel or fix right away (still crossing my fingers). The bathrooms were great and functional, the kitchen just needed updated appliances, and overall the floors and walls were in pretty good shape. This gave us the ability to pick which room we wanted to focus on remodeling first. We have decided to work on the kitchen-- luckily we can build off of the main aspects of the kitchen (got to love remodeling on a budget).
Kitchen when we moved in (ignore the cleaning supplies):
Our kitchen now:
My husband and I love watching HGTV-- which can be awesome and misleading all at the same time (everything looks so easy to put together!) and we especially love "Fixer Upper." Chip and Joanna Gaines are not only adorable and work extremely well together, but they can turn any house into an amazing, cozy home. I have also been looking to Pinterest for ideas and inspiration (have you ever seen "Pinterest fails?" I feel like that is in my future).
My dream kitchen (and trust me- I am indecisive so this plan could change) includes the following:
White Cabinets// Dark Knobs// Farmer Sinks
I don't know when my obsession with white cabinets started, but it is a full-fledged obsession. We can use our existing cabinets (solid oak wood), so all we have to do is sand, prime, and paint (I think-- Jim will figure out the details, and I will just be doing what he says haha). I am also just as obsessed with farmer sinks. I'm loving the look of the following cabinets, knobs, and farmer sinks:
Subway Tile: Back splash
I blame HGTV for my insane love of subway tile back splash. When did I become such an adult? haha-- I never noticed these things until I had a house of my own. Surprisingly though, one of my students was well versed in home improvement projects (one of my many tangents in class), and did have an opinion on house decor. However, I feel as though I did not care about these things until I had my own house (I am so sorry mom and dad!). Regardless, back to my back splash! I love subway tile, particularly in aqua and light green.
Dark Hardwood Floors (or flooring that looks like that) and Potential Counter tops:
Our flooring at the moment is a tile-like laminate that is falling apart, cheap, but surprisingly hides a lot of dirt (I have a feeling I am going to like floors that this in my future), however, Jim and I love a dark, hardwood look. We don't necessarily need to have real wood for our flooring, but we do want a functional floor that has that same look. We also like the butcher block look for our counter tops (which you can see in a lot of these pictures), but we also love the way gray granite counter tops look. We are even loving the sleek look of concrete counter tops. Help! Too many choices :)!
How about you guys? Have you recently done a kitchen remodel? What did you do? Did you go with white cabinets? What are your counter tops? What did you do for flooring? I would love input!!!! Thanks for reading :)
Wow you are so blessed to have such a stunning looking house. My father in-law has a similar looking house but they don't have such a magnificent kitchen. You should really work as a interior decorator, such a good job on the remodel. Well done and keep up the blog posts, they are great to read and share with others.
ReplyDeleteEssie Reed @ Valley Home Improvement