The kitchen design, and the one cabinet decision that almost broke me.

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We are getting closer and closer to go time… the kitchen cabinets should be shipping the first week of April and I have plenty of things I still need to do. Anyone know where to get a super sexy black kitchen faucet?? Given that we will have had at least a month of waiting while the cabinets were being fabricated, there are no excuses for not being ready when they actually get here! So what’s our kitchen actually going to look like?! I’ve shared my inspiration images for the kitchen, and now I’m finally sharing the actual finishes we’ve picked…

How We’re Transforming Our Kitchen

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From the first time we walked through our new place and I saw the kitchen layout, I knew exactly how I would transform the space. I have no idea what I’m doing in some other areas of the house, but I am very clear on what is happening to this space, and it’s a good thing since we ended up getting started with this part of our renovation a wee bit {a lot} earlier than we had initially planned. So what are we doing in there?! Here is the plan of the space when we bought it. The kitchen is…

Kitchen renovations on a budget: painted cabinets, why that counter probably needs to go and what you need to know for a successful {and good looking} budget refresh

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Painting kitchen cabinets has become the go-to quick {and cheap} fix for a dated kitchen. No matter what your kitchen looks like, just paint those cabinets white and ~ voila! ~ you can say the space is updated, and won’t everyone just be racing over? Maybe… not. Here are two kitchen renovations. Both painted existing cabinets, one stopped there, and the other made some additional updates. Personally I think the space on the right looks far better than the one on the left {and so should everyone else who isn’t blind}. The short cheap squatty ‘backsplash’, the stark contrast between…

Bye bye subway backsplash… a new trend is in town.

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Subway tiles are classic, and ~ if done right ~ are timeless. But they’ve been so popular for enough years now that even these are starting to feel a little tired and overdone. I’ll always love them, but I will admit, there’s another approach to backsplashes that’s been a rare sighting for a long time, but is getting a little more attention these days, and I couldn’t be more excited. The slab as backsplash. Personally I’ve been head over heels in love with this look for a long time. It doesn’t really get more sophisticated than this. And if anything is more…

Rethinking {upper} kitchen cabinets

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Would you ever go sans upper cabinets in your kitchen? Did you just think to yourself ~ what is this chick talking about?! But  really, think about it, it’s a string of boxes hanging on the wall, floating over that precious counter space… and those top shelves are always so hard to reach! You don’t see a lot of kitchens without upper cabinets, but I’m totally in love with this look and can’t wait to have a space that I can design this way. It might be a little tough to go this design route if you are tight on space, and using vertical…

Adding color to the kitchen

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Remember a few decades ago when everyone was doing ‘themes’ in their kitchens? Chickens, cherries, gingham… you’d pick something you love and then fill up the room with dishes, kitchen towels, plates, a nice wallpaper border to top it all off. It was bad design heaven. Thankfully that trend is long gone… When I design a space I tend to gravitate toward more minimal, classic designs, and like to keep things clean and simple. When it comes to my kitchen I like to have as many things put away as possible. I don’t like to have lots of stuff on…

Uptown Kitchen – Final Photos!

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Here they are, final pics of Eugenia and her family’s kitchen renovation! It’s hard to even remember the before space, much less imagine that it’s all the same cabinets under that glossy new paint. This is definitely one of my favorite projects for a huge transformation of a space while working with a lot of the existing conditions. It’s easy to make a huge change when you can tear everything out, move walls and really start over, but you can also completely transform a space with a few strategic moves and a great team. I feel so lucky to have…

Uptown Kitchen Transformation – In Progress

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One of my favorite things about renovations is seeing the progress as the space transforms, so I’m super excited to be able to share that with you for this project. I’d already mentioned before that we decided to keep the existing cabinets and repaint them. This is an awesome way to get a big change for a lot less cost, and these kitchen cabinets were a classic style and in good condition, so it really made sense to keep them. So how do kitchen cabinets get re-painted you ask? Well, for starters – I would not consider this a DIY…

Kitchen Renovation – Getting Started and Making Decisions…

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Oh my goodness, how time flies. When did it turn October?! (yes, I know it was eight days ago) Needless to say, I am way overdue to share more info about Eugenia’s renovation. When we first started talking about her style and possible approaches to the space, Eugenia and I kept talking about keeping things light and bright. The more I thought about what to propose, I just kept feeling like it would be so fun to do the base cabinets a darker color and have the counter and top cabinets white. I don’t know why I kept thinking that,…

The Home Stretch

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I swear there is a quote out there about the last certain amount of yards before the end being the hardest – I wish I could remember the exact saying but whatever it is – it’s true. We are so close to wrapping up Lindsey and Doug’s renovation… if we could just get the bathroom vanity taken care of and a few other odds and ends we’d be done. And we are all ready for that. I kind of love and hate the last few weeks of a project. Things happen really quickly and you see a lot of change…