2013: A Fresh Start for a Kitchen

This is actually my second attempt at my 1st blog post of the new year. And it feels slightly odd kicking off my family journaling for the year with a post about our kitchen, but everything else at this point is so hodge-podgy, mentally, this is just an easy place for me to start!

As I have mentioned we have been chipping away at several house projects and really none of them have actually been finished. Until now! The kitchen is "done". For now. Heck! Maybe even for good!! I love to dream about new floors, carrera marble or butcher block, farm sink, more windows.... blowing out walls....What can I say I'm pretty large scale dreamer. But you know what? I am also super content. I feel like we accomplished the goal of making the kitchen feel homey and like we have put our stamp on it. And really? I'm perfectly happy stopping there-- Short of all those "ooh ah" finishes. The counters may be laminate, the floors are linoleum, and the cabinets are straight up oak. But whatevs. In my book it's all neutral enough (and actually in super shape) that I'm "happy, happy, happy" (For me fellow DD watchers out there ;). So without further adieu....Our improved kitchen:

Before:

After:

Who knew my little Anthropologie hand towel that I used in our previous kitchen (and this one as well) as a color spring board, would tie in those lovely "vintage" harvest gold ovens?! :)

Hey I have said this a number of times-- I'll take my double well working harvest gold beauty's over a new stainless steel single oven any day of the week!!

Before:

 After:

Before:

 After:

(The laundry room as you can see has also been a project we have started. It has been stripped and painted and I painted the cabinets in there the same color as you can sort of see the door is. But I have to finish the trim, put another coat on my charcoal grey garage door, and I want to find a rug and something for on the wall to tie in my funky red cabinet knobs I put in there. I will shoot to share when it is done too)

You can see here the extent of how badly we damaged the walls. Two layers of paper straight on sheet rock. Yuck. We did hire someone who was crazy cheap to come in and repair and paint. 

Before:

After: 

A small rug for by the back door is the last item on my wish list for this room.

Before (This is actually after attempted wall paper removal, and also you can see the large hole in the ceiling from a plumbing issue we had to have fixed right after moving in and the old light fixture hanging down)

We lived with it like this for about 3 months. It was so good for me!! A lot of times I set my mind to something and it has to be...ASAP. I feel like it was a good thing for me to put off that selfish instant gratification, even if it was only for a few months!

 And after. I closed the door to the dining room b/c the paper is still in there, and trust me it throws the eye off ;-) The bench doesn't belong with the table, but it adds an extra seat, a little more space, and honestly it's one of my favorite pieces of furniture and this house just didn't have a great spot for it, so I was more than happy to at least put it to use.

I patched the ceiling myself. If you saw my pic of Facebook you get the idea that it wasn't a purdy site mid process. But I stuck with it and managed to get'er done. I was pretty excited about getting it done for less than $40. And the school house light was $50. Score.

Just some extras:

 The kiddOs are always sneaking their "artwork" onto the fridge. Just noticed they loaded her up before I took these pics!

The herb picture frames are navy, not black.

I threw this pillow there knowing it was going to be too big for the chair, just wanted to get an idea about what a little pop of pattern would do there. Well I have decided I like the color and pattern too much to care about the technicality of it's size ;-)

This is a later afternoon pic. The drum shade light is Pottery Barn. I was a little picky with this because I really wanted the natural burlap/linen look and I also liked this was the only one I saw with a slight flare at the bottom. I felt like that gave it a little more traditional look. The wall color is a Valspar color: "Portico". It is a green/grey/blue. It's kind of a color with an identity crisis but I like it. 

So there you have it. I love it. I really do. In my eyes it's modest, cozy, and perfect.