The Kitchen

Its taking me awhile to upload all our vacation pics, so I thought in the meantime I could show you a bit more of our house (since I already have those photos online). Wanna see our kitchen?

I really like our kitchen...it has a great layout, a large eat-in area, a slider out to our back deck, white cabinets, silestone counters and beautiful cherry hardwood floors. On move-in day it looked like this:




Eventually, years from now, we will probably redo the whole kitchen, but for now, we've just made some minor/important improvements to get the space to where we really love it. First off was new paint. We did not love the red walls, mostly because they were very close the color of the cherry floors. We love the floors and we wanted them to stand out. So we choose a light neutral beige, Benjamin Moore Barharbor Beige (picked out from some of the speckles in the countertops), to brighten things up and contrast with the floors (this is the opposite of what we did in our downstairs bathroom where we made the floors blend in by choosing a similiar color for the walls). Don't you think the new paint makes the floors pop now?




We love our island (so functional and lots of storage). Another big improvement we made was to replace the lighting. There used to be a large white round pendant hanging here, but P swapped it out it with these 3 hanging pendants (connected at the top to one piece) from Lowes in an oil-rubbed bronze finish.

{black bar stools from Crate and Barrel}

I wanted something a little fun and different for the wall to the left of the fridge. I bought 4 large pieces of decorative paper from Paper-Source and wrapped them (like gifts) around blank artist canvases from Michaels (secured with that big clear packing tape stuff in the back). I like the addition of color they add to the space.

Here's the eat-in area. We already had this table and chairs from our old condo, and for now they work well enough in the space. We got the table (natural top and matte silver legs) from Crate and Barrel forever ago. Then we bought unfinished chairs at the Mill Store and had them just apply a poly sealer to them (so they would stay that light natural color). P changed out the lighting here too (bye bye Tiffany lamp-like brass thing, hello simple oil-rubbed bronze chandelier - also from Lowes).

{these 2 large B&W black-matted photos were done by our friend Gretchen...I gave them to P a bunch of years ago as a birthday gift. thought they looked lovely flanking the slider and above each chair.}

Another big boost to this room was new window treatments. We used 4 floor-length drapery panels for the slider to the back deck (2 on each side, we draw them closed at night) and a matching roman shade for the double-wide window over the sink. Both sets are the Montgomery Stripe from Pottery Barn, purchased with a bunch of different gift cards we had received as housewarming presents....(thanks, everyone!!).

On the wall next to the bathroom and living room, we hung these 2 white ledge shelves from Linens-N-Things to balance out the opposing wall of all white cabinetry. They are of course a great place to display cook books, found objects, framed photos, whatevs. And I like to change them out often since I get bored easily. They don't look like this now, but I don't have any updated pics, sorry.

{here they are decked out for Christmas last year}

Above the door leading down to our mud room and garage, I hung this sign I found at a local boutique while home at my parents' house. I'm 6 hours away from my family and hometown (we're 20 minutes away from P's), so everytime I look at this sign I think of them and the house I grew up in. I'd like to get a similiar one with our town here in MA on it to also put up in the kitchen. (Any fellow Bucks County peeps out there?)

On this wall we hung a dry erase/cork board for messages, notes, etc. I snagged this black cabinet from my work when we moved offices and they didn't want it anymore (originally from Target I think)...I keep cookbooks and table linens, etc. in here. And check out my giant pear I found at Home Goods!!! (That's the front door/foyer in the back left and dining room on the right.) This wall/area has since had a little mini-makeover, more on that later.

So, there you have it. The heart of our home:) I've since decided that less red accents in this space would be better...you know how your style is constantly evolving...I'd like to slowly add a bit more chartreuse/olive green...but I'm still down with the black, white and beige vibe we have going on...for now;) Thanks for looking!