I wish I had before photos of our kitchen. Let’s just say that for most it was not the selling point of the house. In our eyes it was perfect, because it was so dated that it needed to be redone. There were no if’s, ands or butts about it. It had dated wood toned cabinets, a chambers stove and mustard yellow tile 3/4 way up the wall and vinyl laminate on the floors.

We worked on it right away before we even moved in. Jon and his dad did it all themselves. I remember running over one night when we thought that since the rest of the main floor had wood there had to be a chance that under the vinyl laminate there was wood! We ran over and low and behold we were right! It wasn’t in the best condition, but instead of making that a negative it just gave me the go ahead to paint them and not feel bad about it.

We had fun in this space and it pretty much remained as is from it’s initial re-design. I knew immediately I wanted something bright and airy. So we went with Ikea for our cabinets. We loved them. It made re-doing the kitchen more affordable, which was nice since we needed new appliances as well.

Another must have on my list for the new kitchen look was a farm sink. I will forever love them and would love to have one in any future kitchens. It’s just so nice to have the double sink and the white porcelain never stained or chipped on us.

One of the updates we made after the initial remodel was adding grasscloth to the ceiling. The ceiling is the 5th wall that is typical forgotten in design, but I always love showing it a little love. I loved having a little texture up their and it paired nicely with our almost white paint called, Glass of milk by Martha Stewart.

We also have 5 doors in the kitchen. One that leads to the basement, one that leads to the florida room/office, one that leads to the dining room, one that leads to the living room and one that leads to the powder room. I actually love having the kitchen closed off to every other room. It’s nice to hide the cooking mess when company is over. We painted one of the doors with chalkboard and it was originally for us to write out shopping lists, but once we had kids it quickly became their favorite hang out. I was able to cook so many meals without my mini chef’s for the exchange of a piece of chalk.

We went with classic subway tile for the backsplash surround and while I love it I do wish I had gone with a darker grout color. Jon liked it all white and I wanted gray, but marriage is a compromise so I left it go, but if I could change one thing that would be it.

One of my favorite little design details is all of the jade hardware that picked up the painted jade green floors perfectly.

Here you can catch a little peek into our powder room. It was a pretty nondescript room and we added some character by adding bead board from floor to ceiling and then applying tin tiles to the ceiling. Add to that a massive gallery wall with pieces that we collected thru the years and it really gave the little bathroom some life.

Hope you enjoyed a little peek into our home and it has helped give you some tips on how to be adventurous with color and pattern in your space!

Amazing photographs from Erin Kestenbaum.