As with any house in the world, ours is ever evolving. Rooms have looked 100 different ways since we moved in - trying to find the flow and the feel of this old house. I am a true believer in the fact that you have to LIVE in a space before you can decorate it. You have to figure out where you want to put your feet up, where the dust collects, how the light shines through the windows and ruins the afternoon viewing of Jeopardy in the summer. You have to really FEEL the bones of your home before you can adorn them with the perfect dressing.
It's been 3 years since we moved here. After 3 years I am finally getting the feel of this old house - knowing exactly how I want it to look and now I'm ready to simply execute the great plan in my head. Therefore, here are the afters of our home. As you look at these, remember that the goal of my decorating style isn't perfection. It's comfort that's trimmed in stylish. We live in this house. We are human and dirty and make messes and have dogs who jump on furniture. Our life doesn't slow down often, but when it does, I want to S-I-N-K into my home and regroup.
I'm going to do this in parts. First up is the exerior of our house and the kitchen!
You remember the before of the front of our house. Cream on cream on gross.
And the after! We had all of the trim painted bright white and the siding was caulked, fixed and painted a color called Gris by Sherwin Williams. We loved this color, but it was a tiny bit too dark as is, so we had them mix it at 60% opacity to lighten it up a bit. It turned out perfect! The porch was painted a beautiful tan/gray color to compliment the Gris and the railings and front doors were painted with Tricorn Black. The whole process to paint this house took 10 weeks! It was a process that we didn't take on ourselves - money well spent! It was a hassle, but worth it!
(the wood leaning on the fence? Cornhole. We were getting ready for a summer party)
You can see here one of my favorite things about this house. The front porch has a wood lined ceiling! It's stained a Gorgeous dark wood and I. LOVE. IT.
A close up of our porch. Ignore the dog bed on the right side. I am not a person who has a green thumb, but my goal this year is to make this a front porch oasis. More on that later.
Since these photos were taken, we have updated these light fixtures. However since it's -14 today, I'm not venturing out to take a new picture. And my house is likely covered in snow sludge anyway, so you have to wait until spring to see that detail. :)
Ok, the kitchen!! Do you remember the before? NASTY. Pink. yick. yick. yick!
The After. Sooooo much better?!? Here's what we did: After gutting the kitchen, we added a window over the sink to bring more light. We actually relocated the sink, the oven, the refrigerator - almost everything has a new location. I love that there is enough room around the island for all of us to eat and relax and do homework. It truly is the hub of our lives.
Sources: The chalkboard is from Layla Grayce. The rangehood came from Overstock.com Appliances from HHGregg, barstools from Homedecorators.com The little wooden screen that hides our heating vent is from Marshalls/Homegoods. The cabinets are from a local cabinet company.
Our backsplash. My fave. It's from Overstock.com and wasn't expensive but was a total PITA to install - just a heads up. Thankfully, this was a job for my husband and his father. :)
A few thoughts on my kitchen: The granite is amazing, however I am growing tired quickly of the mass expanse of granite. I am considering repurposing the island granite into a double sink countertop in the master bathroom and replacing the island with something more rustic. In addition, I left the tiny prep sink that they initially had in the kitchen, however I find it useless. Just an extra thing to keep clean. If I replaced the island, I would remove this sink altogether.
The wall of stainless. When we designed this kitchen, the placement of the appliances ended up having to go in certain places because of gas lines, etc. Soooo, in hind sight I would not have so much darned stainless!! I am patiently waiting for my refrigerator to die so I can replace it with one that looks like cabinetry. :)
Since we renovated this kitchen, I had a panic attack that there was too much cabinetry. There is a LOT of cabinetry. So, after a tiny sign from the universe (one of the cabinets just decided to fall off the wall), I was able to replace one of them with open shelving. The shelves are from IKEA - we just cut them to size and pieced the pretty end back onto the nice shelf. And they fit perfectly into the spot left by the cabinet for the backsplash. I love this so much better and I'm waiting for every other upper cabinet to fall down so I can have a true open shelving kitchen. :)
Here it is when we first installed it last summer:
And here it is today - ever evolving, right?!
That's it! Kitchen and the outside. :) Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
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