Let there be (nicer) light!

Well hello there chickies! How are we on this lovely Monday morning?

Today I'm here to show you some progress on the kitchen! Although I made a plan, we haven't stuck to it in the order we originally assumed, but who does?! Phase two was supposed to be a cabinet above the fridge, new brass hardware & adding crown molding to the top of the cabinets. We're working on the hardware at the moment (I keep changing my selections, oops!) but we're waiting for the new year to complete the other steps. 


So. Lighting. Ok. We had no idea what we wanted. Here are a few options we considered, and eventually rejected.

1.Shades of Light 2.Lamps Plus 3.Lumens 4.Lamps Plus 5.Home Depot 6.discontinued? 7.Shades of Light 8.Schoolhouse Electric 9.Home Depot

For one reason or another, they just didn't work when I did my Photoshop hack job of the space. Because this home doesn't really have a style, it was very hard to choose something! I feel like lighting can help clearly define the style of a room, along with other things like moldings & furnishings. These weren't helping. So we kept our eyes open for something that felt right. 


Have I told you how much I love the Restore? Well I do, a lot. My husband and I decided to stroll through our local store last week during one of my mornings off. I was looking for wing-back chairs, but I still like to peak at the other sections. While we were originally lured into the lighting area by another fixture, once we saw the lights we chose, ideas were flooding! 


Enter: your standard builder-grade brass foyer light. 

We plan to Rub 'n Buff them so the finish is a little more antique, a little less eighties. Or possibly spray them black. I don't know yet. One step at a time!

My husband hung them using a recessed light adapter from Home Depot. Eleven bucks, say what? The pendant has made it through the night (something I was SERIOUSLY concerned about) but I will have an update about the durability of this product in the near future!

We haven't hung the other one yet, but here's my sad Photoshop to show you what it might look like when they're both up! It won't be as close to the shelves as it looks, I promise.

I'll have a tutorial for using the converter, as my husband said the instructions basically sucked.

What do you think?! I'm totally in love! Eep!!!

PS. We have two microwaves. Can you say fatties?

We're on the right track!

Seeing this kitchen on the cover of a magazine made me smile!



Why, you ask?

Because our kitchen looks like this:



Green-ish grey cabinets, open shelving with black brackets & as you know from this post we'll be introducing white marble (or a solid-surface substitute) counters!

Look at who's totally on trend!!!

I told you babe, I'm not THAT crazy ;)

I hope you all enjoy your weekend! We will be rooting for the local university's football team later today & the Washington Redskins tomorrow! I LOVE football season :)

Phase One : The Kitchen Chronicles

We started off with an easy task : paint the kitchen. Simple right? Well, it wouldn't be me if it was just that simple. As we were taping off the cabinets and counters to prep for paint, I wondered aloud how hard it would be to raise the cabinets 3-5 inches. And the rest is down hill from there...

(please excuse me while I ramble for a bit...feel free to scroll for pics if you'd like!)

Raising the cabinets seemed easy enough. Only problem? The STUDS. There are none in the proper places above the cabinets. Dear Lord, somebody hold me. But, because I had jumped the gun and we'd already removed the cabinet to the right of the range, we realized how much more open the kitchen seemed. Not wanting to be without the storage that cabinet provided, we decided on shelves. Then we decided to paint the cabinets. add crown molding. replace the counter tops. The list just goes on and on. For today though, I'm here to show you phase one: shelves & painted cabinets. 

From the beginning I strongly disliked the kitchen. It felt tract-house, builder grade, boring. Functionality was not the problem (beyond the over-the range microwave, but that's for another time!). It was just, well, ugly to me.Take a gander:

When I say ugly, I don't mean OMGosh-I'd-rather-rip-my-eyes-out-than-rip-out-those-cabinets-ugly, I just mean, there's no spark and absolutely no desire for me to be in it. 

So, yadda yadda yadda, I told you we removed one cabinet, and added shelves. Here's what that looked like for a few weeks:

If you'd like more detailed info on what we did to get to this point, drop me a line! 

Better, but not quite there. See, the problem is, I read blogs and I am a recovering member of Shelter Mags Anonymous, SMA if you're nasty. I can see the potential. I can see what so many people before us have done to take a lackluster kitchen and make it shine. And I can see that our kitchen is not quite ready for it's closeup. So we took a step back, evaluated & jumped in before we could change our minds. and let me tell you, I am loving what I'm seeing so far.

Yum. 

Phase two, which we hope to complete in the next few weeks, includes a cabinet above the fridge, new brass hardware & adding crown molding to the top of the cabinets a la The Lettered Cottage. 

Beyond phase two, we still have pendant lighting, lowering the bar, new counters & backsplash, and possibly new flooring throughout the house. It's gonna be awhile, so stick along for the ride, k? It's gonna be awesome sauce :)

What are those crazy kids up to now?!

So hubby and I are in the process of painting each room in our house. As I'm sure you all know, paint is the cheapest & easiest way to refresh your home, so it's a great way to start! We painted our bedroom not too long ago, so we decided to move on to the next room, the KITCHEN! I've had lots of crazy ideas in my head about my "dream kitchen, even though hubby is the cook in this house!

I have tons of inspiration pics, but I'll spare you & show only my three favorites. Let's go through them! 

From the one below, I love the cabinet color & the effortless way they combined multiple metal finishes in such a small space. It flows very well. Hubby asked me if you can mix metals, and this picture says yes!

(click pic for source!)

I'm so in love with Erika's kitchen! The color of the cabinets, the roman shades, the casual & cozy feel of the room - it's beautiful!

(click pic for source!)

And Emily's kitchen. I'm taking note of the glass front upper cabinets, the honed black granite counter top & the bin pulls on the drawers! 

(click pic for source!)

With all of these kitchens in mind & with the chef of the house on board, we've come up with a plan. Actually, we painted the kitchen THEN came up with a plan, but so far it's working! 

• The walls in the great room (kitchen, living & dining rooms) are Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray.
• We're painting the cabinets Sherwin Williams Brainstorm Bronze. To decide on the color, we followed a tip of Erika's by painting a piece of cardboard with a few different samples and checking them out throughout different times of day. The darkest color is the one we like the best! 
• The counters will be honed black "granicrete". It's a concrete surface made to resemble granite at a fraction of the cost. I'm really excited about this! 
• We're going with a carrera marble backsplash - a splurge -but since we'll be saving with everything else, I think it's absolutely worth it. 
• Here's the first metal in the room: copper pendants. They give a slight nod to traditional, which I'm beginning to find myself more attracted to. 
• By far my favorite part of this makeover is the brass hardware! That inspiration picture really made me open my eyes to it
• Color will come in through the counter stools & our dishes. We've had these dishes since we got married, so I want to show them off!
• And the icing on this oh-so-yummy cake, the faucet. Bridge & totally trad, I'm so in love! 

Other things of note:

• The microwave-over-the-range situation does not work in this house. It's coming down & a nice hood will replace it. (We have a new place for the microwave too, don't worry!)
• We currently have a weird wall-bar thing, that's coming down too. We're going to have one continuous counter top for the our peninsula. I think it'll help make the space feel less choppy.
• And last but not least, we're adding open shelving to the right side of the range!

So here's our official before photo:

Let the fun start!!!

Let's try this again...

Hello friends & family! What's it been, six months?! Yikes!

I didn't have much to report in that six months. It's been work all day, party sleep all night! Dante is finally rated in his job, which means his schedule is now crazy ridiculous, so whenever our schedules meshed, we spent that time together. We've gotten pretty used to it, so we're officially working on the house!

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Remember back in JANUARY when I talked about our plan for our master bedroom? That got thrown out of the window. Hubby expressed a want for something a little less cheery, a little more soothing since he'll have to sleep in their during the day on some shifts. Back to the drawing board I went, but with no hesitation. I had secretly grown tired of it as well, just didn't want to say anything! 

Hubby picked out the paint color. It was pretty random how it happened.

Scene: Chilling, watching tv..

Me: Let's paint our bedroom.

Him: OK, what colors are you thinking? When do you want to do this?

Me: I have no idea & let's do it right NOW!

Ha! So, I grabbed my Sherwin Williams deck & let him at it. I love the color he chose. It's a moody grayish, greeny brown. Fantabulous! So with the new color in mind, I went to work!

Because we are working on a VERY limited budget, I wanted to reuse as much as we possibly could. That

includes our existing furniture, coverlet & recycling the headboard that was previously in the room.

I have two variations of this room, so let’s review:

In version 1:

1. Sherwin Williams Warm Stone SW7032

2. When we recover our headboard, we’re going to use this tutorial by the lovely Janell Beals with 

a toffee-toned faux leather & nail head trim.

3. Here’s the variation. I’ve been coveting this Schumacher fabric for forever. It’s gorgeous and

has the perfect combination of colors to tie in the old & the new in our room. However, it’s

expensive. It would only be for a 14x48” pillow, so I know 1 yard could work, but it ain’t a cheap

yard!

4. This is a beautiful Thom Filicia fabric that will be for throw pillows, I’m thinking three for the

bed.

5. I found this nightstand at JCPenney, which will be the inspiration for what we plan to do on our

current nightstand. If that doesn’t work out, these could be in the budget!

6. This lovely little lamp is from Target, out of their mix-and-match line. I’m still looking for a drum

shade for them, but this one from Shades of Light will stand in for now!

7. Since the color will come through in the headboard & pillows, I’m keeping the bedding pretty

neutral. It just needs to be a backdrop.

8. Same goes for the sheets! These are probably my fave sheets, from the Fieldcrest line at Target.

9. We’ve had this coverlet set since we got married. I love the color!

10. Whenever I think of leather, I think of cozy sweaters & snow & fireplaces. We don’t get snow

here, and there is no need for a fireplace, but I’m bringing in the sweater pillow for some

texture on a chair for our reading space.

In version 2:

Like I said above, the only difference is in #3, the “accent fabric” (man I hate how that sounds!) This is

a slightly more budget friendly option. Also a Schumacher print, Sandoway Vine offers a slightly more

subtle version of the same color palette.

We've completed step one (the painting) as of this past Sunday. I'm so excited to see this plan come to fruition!