Home Style Evolution: The Kitchen

They call it the heart of the home for a reason. It is. It truly is. I can't tell you how many times we have people over, and we never leave the kitchen. My best friend and her husband were up earlier in the year and I had to practically drag them into my living room. There's something about a kitchen...

So it's imperative that your kitchen be stylish, that it is clean (please, God, please, ya'll clean your kitchens!), clutter free, and that it be inviting to your family and any guests you may have.

BLOGGERS NOTE: After putting this post off for waaaay longer than I ever intended, I decided to go ahead and post it, but however I want to let everyone know, right now, that the kitchen is about to undergo another big change, probably, so I am not posting any current shots of the room, because there will be a post about the changes I make


When I first saw this kitchen, I kind of wanted to cry. I had all these ideas built up in my head about what the house looked like (someone else had been living here for all of our engagement up until 4 months before the big day), and, sadly, not a single one of those ideas turned out to be true. I was so disappointed with this room, in particular. Even the pink tile in the bathroom was easier to swallow for me than the kitchen. I don't say that to sound spoiled, but, I was expecting a bit of an update...

The cabinets are original to the house and, turns out, are a custom width and depth. So they're in pretty awesome shape considering how old the house is.  However the green sink (and twin range hood) were god-awful and had to go, pronto! I'm pretty sure a new stainless steel sink was my first purchase for the house, even if it did sit in the box in the middle of the living room floor for months before it was installed.

When my sister in law and her family lived here a few years ago (back in the early 2000's) they put up this border. It's not exactly my style and it was the first thing to get the axe.

 We also knew right away we would have to get all new kitchen appliances. I was used to cooking on my Mom's glass top stove, so we decided we'd spring for one of those!  On a side note, the pink snake skin purse seen in the above picture went missing. It hasn't been seen since. Sad.  I liked that purse.

 I love this shot, cause it's US working on OUR FIRST HOUSE together. Look.how.short.my.hair.was. Why?!

A couple of weeks later, this was how the kitchen looked. We took off all the doors and removed all the drawers to get them ready to be primed and painted! You can kind of see how deep the floor cabinets are!

 We are so ghetto, we used coffee cans as paint buckets. But you know what, they worked so much better than the ones you get from the store! They held more paint and were easier to hold, and after we were done, we could just toss them! OH! I'd forgotten about the thermometer outside the kitchen window! Ha!

 My cousin and I primed the paneling over the cabinets one night while our husbands removed that old nasty green range hood!

This refrigerator door didn't even close all the way! But we put it to good use keeping our snacks and drinks cold, even though we had to kick the bottom corner to get it to stay closed. Not sure where they took it, but the day Aaron and his Dad moved it out I was practically dancing for joy, cause that meant the new stuff could be delivered!

 We've got all our gear laid out and ready to go! We'd already been working for a month on the house at this point. The cabinets quickly became the place to store all our necessities.

We got the cabinet base sanded down and were ready to prime and paint! I can't thank my cousin and her husband enough for coming by every night to help us! We had so much fun! I have great memories of my late Uncle coming by to help out too!

 12 days later, Aaron was hard at work painting the cabinets with a dark brown, oil based paint. (He's standing where the fridge is now.)

 1 coat done! Looking pretty snazzy!

This was one of the nights, however, that the stress got to us and we nearly called the whole thing off. It happens to every couple, no couple's relationship is perfect. Ours certainly isn't. I'm pretty sure this was the night I threw my engagement ring out in the yard, in the middle of the night, and told him I was done! But as you can see, we made up, miraculously found my ring in the yard, and finished up painting the rest of our cabinets.... and I never once chipped a nail. :)



When we finally came back from our honeymoon and moved in, our kitchen looked like this, thanks to the hard work our parents and friends put in while we were gone for the week!

I'm obsessed with teacups and fell in love with this rug. It doesn't match my kitchen anymore, but I've still got it, rolled up in storage, and am determined that in our next house I will find a place for this rug! (possibly in my fabulous dream walk in pantry!)


We chose a high top round table as our kitchen table. No dining room in this house, alas, alas. Functionally this is the best table we've ever had. But aesthetically, I like our current table the best. But anyway, here it is. We added the "The best memories are made when gathered around the table," quote there at the table (my sister in law loved it so much we bought her one for her dining room... which is painted this exact same sage green color!

We chose the brown on brown color scheme for our curtains. It worked with the theme of the house, but got old very very quickly and kept the room dark, even on the brightest days.

I was so super pleased with how our cabinets turned out, and very happy with our new counter tops. We'd considered, for about 30 seconds, keeping the old counter tops but after 4 months of renovations, we'd gotten tired of the old 1970's mobile home counter tops, so we sprung and got these lovely ones from Lowe's. (Have I ever mentioned that I love Lowe's!) Turns out, our cabinets were actually extra deep, so when the installer from Lowe's came out to put these new counter tops on, he had to leave to go get some wood so that he could "build out" the wall so that he could install standard size counters! The joys of an old house! But I am so pleased with how it turned out. (Funny side note, the counter tops in my Mom's house are what I wanted in ours, but it was unavailable at the time. Now that she's been in her new house for a couple of years, she wants my counter tops instead of what she has!)

We got all new stainless steel appliances for an absolute steal from Sears one afternoon. We love them. Our fridge was $1600 marked down to... wait for it... $300. It has a scratch on the front and a ding on the side. We snatched it up in a hurry because that was ALL that was wrong with it, we keep it stuffed full at all times. (It will make a dazzling 2nd fridge one day when we move.)



After a couple of years, Aaron and I got tired of our cute little round table. We'd actually purchased a rectangle table when we got engaged but ended up never using. We couldn't afford to go buy a new kitchen table, so I pulled out my BFF, a can of spray paint, and went to town on our old table... and this was the result. We were thrilled with it! If you look way way back in The Simple Life archives, you will find the post where I painted this table and chairs.

Having the old farmhouse looking table in the kitchen caused us - ok, caused me- to reconsider some of my decor choices. So, after the bottom in my glass sugar canister fell completely out one afternoon - what a mess -  I hit up Amazon.com and found these beauties, and it all kind of snowballed from there.

We also bought some new curtains from... can you guess... Lowe's. I am obsessed with all fabrics from Waverly and these were my first Waverly purchases. They started my obsession. My mother was never a huge floral type woman, her country style was always more solid colors etc. I, however, love a good floral.  We added the chalkboard (Family Dollar) and the old TV stand that had once been in our living room to act as a kind of a buffet. It was a lot of furniture in the room, but it worked because the table was just small enough that it all worked out.

I even started adding some nick-knacks on the  ledge above our cabinets. It's not very wide, so I can't put anything real thick up there for display, but I can add plates and cups and little teapots and glass jars... it adds to the country feel of the room I think.

Soon enough, I felt like change was in the air. I need a decor change every few weeks or so, otherwise I get bored. Especially considering I spent 98% of my time inside this house looking at it all the time.


I decided I wanted some place to display all of my Mama's glassware pieces. So after a $20 trip to Lowe's, this was the newest edition to my kitchen. I've always wanted a China Cabinet but obviously have no room for it in this house, so I improvised.

While we had our little black table everything worked perfectly fine. I even decided to change the position of the table.

BEFORE

AFTER

This way gave us the most space in the kitchen and I really liked having it this way.


But then, wouldn't you know it, my sweetheart goes and surprises me with our dream table! We'd been looking at tables like this forever but never could afford any of them. We just happen to have a friend in the consignment business and she sold us this very expensive table for peanuts!

It is huge, but it seats 6 people - and we have a huge family- and I think it really lightens up the room. We find ourselves eating at the table a lot more these days than we did before.

We did have to remove the black cabinet because it was just too much, but we left the shelves...

... for a while.

We replaced the small light fixture over the table with a pretty chandelier that Aaron got for a steal at Lowe's about a month ago, and between it hanging so low (too low, we have to raise it about 6 more inches I think) and the table being so big, the shelves weren't functionally working anymore. Plus, we kept knocking our heads against the shelves. Pretty painful.

There were also a ton of nasty drill holes in the wall, so I had to cover it up with something.

I'm all about saving some $$. I love all the cool, funky kitchen art pieces you find on Etsy, and who knows, maybe one day I'll spring for one, but I needed something NOW (#spurofthemomentDIYproblems) and didn't want to wait for whatever I'd ordered to come in before I removed my shelves. And because I throw no piece of decor away, I went rummaging through my office closet and found an old big square flower print from Dollar General that didn't go with the theme of our house anymore. Take that, a few cans of spray paint and some black acrylic paint, and I was off. Ha! I wish it had been that simple. I went through two other project ideas before I landed on this one.

It looked corny, and super cheesy, and it only lasted a week.

 

 I had never actually seen anyone, personally, have a cork bulletin board in their kitchen. I'd seen it on Pinterest, but I don't know a soul that's actually done it.  But I thought I'd give it a shot with this Martha Stewart board I'd bought a while ago for my office and wasn't using. I added the "sunshine" canvas on top because of the bad holes in the wall leftover from the shelves. Some days I like it, and some days I don't.


And so for the past few weeks, all has been quiet on the kitchen front. Until recently, when I was looking at my cabinets, and the pretty chocolate brown paint job on them, and I realized I should have painted them a lighter color. I don't even think it was an option when I was originally designing out what I wanted. But now, I want lighter cabinets. Badly. And I can't afford the price of a few gallons of paint, nor do I want to go through the absolute hassle of painting them again. I will not be able to have any help, Aaron and my Mom (my two usual helpers) have to work during the day, and I can't be trusted not to hurt myself trying to do it alone. I'd thought about spray painting them, but the over-spray would cover everything else in the house. So I'm looking into temporary fixes, such as contact paper, which is apparently huge amongst the renting community. If we decide we like the look, then we can save up for some paint, or leave it. We already know that we will move, one day, maybe sooner rather than later, and so spending a ton on a kitchen reno just doesn't seem smart.

I blame Pinterest for this. This is all Pinterest's fault. I see the pictures of the pretty, perfect white kitchens and I'm sucked in, like Alice down the rabbit hole. However, I think it's worth a shot. I will only be out about 30 bucks or so for all of my contact paper (I searched high and low for a super great deal and found it on Amazon) and I can't imagine not taking the chance, especially when the solution to disliking it is peeling it off and throwing it away. No harm, no foul, back to square one.

This change may come as soon as late next week. I'm still mulling this over, intensely, in my mind as to whether I truly want to go through with this or not. I desperately want the change, but there is truly nothing wrong with our current cabinets.



So I'm off to ponder the fate of my kitchen cabinets. I hope you all enjoyed this look at the past lives of my kitchen and are as excited as I am to see what's next!

Thanks for hanging in there with me! See you soon!