KITCHEN UPDATES: NOT FOR RESELL
When we purchased this home going on 5 years ago, the plan was to live here 2ish years, sell and make a profit. While renovating, we focused mostly on current desirables in the market and popularity; highly sellable colors, tiles and pretty safe aesthetics overall. However life is weird, plans change and we’ve come to really love this home and property, starting to see it in a different light than we initially did.
LISTING PHOTO
2 YEAR PLAN DESIGN
We always knew it was special. We probably looked at over 20 homes while searching for this one and they all felt the same. Bland, cookie cutter, builder grade; zero charm, zero land. This home wasn’t perfect in our eyes, but it had soul. It feels unique and despite being a pretty standard colonial on the exterior, it has a custom feel when you walk through it. We live in an area that grew very quickly and a lot of homes have the exact same floor plan. For some people that’s not an issue, but for my home obsessed (particularly 100 year old home obsessed) heart, I need charm. I need special.
Which brings me to the point of this blog post which is: I can no longer live in an all white / off white kitchen. So much so that we started this project on a complete whim a few days before Christmas. I wouldn’t advise that by the way..
This kitchen has been brewing in my brain for years now; I thought I was prepping for our next home but again, life changes. Every single room in my house has some sort of combination of green and orange. It’s my favorite color combination and I cannot get enough of it.
Our vintage chairs were the first change to come about. Bobby and I played our usual “are they ugly or are they cool?” Bobby initially voted ugly, I voted cool. In true Bob fashion - he picked the chairs up for me anyway because he trusted me; and damn they really are cool.
A vintage rug was the next purchase, followed by these incredible coral light fixtures. I hesitated for a good year on these babies and even had doubts when we installed them and the room was still white; but against the greens they are absolute magic.
We went with Benjamin Moore Victorian Garden for the bead board walls and Bayleaf for the trim; satin in both. Bead board is timeless to me. It’s such a soft, subtle charm and add of texture. We also went ahead and added crown (which we hope to eventually do to every room in the house).
It’s still a big work in progress. Not a ton has changed on this side of the room yet; but painting the trim added a nice warm contrast to the subway tiles and we did ditch our overhead microwave for a gorgeous pot filler and the cutest small microwave ever.
I’m playing with art, still need to finish painting the windows, and a million other little details. Our big plans include:
Finishing our garage to live-able space, half a utility / storage room and half a wide galley style entry / mudroom.
With our laundry moving out to the garage / new utility - our current laundry room off of our kitchen will turn into a walk through butlers pantry to our outdoor entertaining area
Once we have a butler pantry with additional storage - remove upper cabinets, add in statement hood range, hopefully a new stove, and ditch the fixed cabinet island that’s currently here with either a vintage wooden one OR I’m seriously considering doing one large table throughout the entire room. Bobby thinks we’ll miss the island work space - but I have been so drawn to eat in kitchens lately. They feel so homey and would eliminate one of the only issues we have in this house; hosting a large dinner party or Friendsgiving indoors as we have no formal dining area.
We have time though, as these projects will likely take us years to DIY with a toddler LOL
Products in this post:
Pot Filler - https://www.signaturehardware.com/augusta-retractable-wall-mount-pot-filler.html
Curtains - old Anthropologie purchased via eBay
Table cover - Kate Spade purchased through eBay
