Pages

Wednesday

Kitchen Progress and Plans In The New House

I love that movie Under The Tuscan Sun. Don't you? 

What I don't necessarily love is a Tuscan themed kitchen ... but that's how ours looked when we purchased our new house!

The next three photos are how the kitchen looked during one of the walk-throughs before it was ours.




It's hard to see a lot of detail in these dark iPhone photos, but here's the gist: dark cherry cabinets, textured terracotta walls, good appliances (double oven!), a gas range in the island, exposed brick on the backside of the family room fireplace, and honey-colored floors.

The granite is interesting. Here's a close-up below:


I'm no granite pro so I don't know what to call this style, but it has some really nice coloration in it. Maybe not necessarily what I would have picked out myself, BUT it is in good shape and I don't feel like paying to replace it anytime soon!

So the first big decision was whether to remove the texture from the walls in the kitchen or not. I decided to just paint over it to save money AND time. We went with a greige (gray/beige) color for the majority of the downstairs rooms that would pull out the gray in the countertops but also blend nicely with some of the beige furniture we own.

Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams is a popular color for a reason! We had it in the bathroom of our last home and it is nice and light but still has enough contrast with white trim. You can see it in the photos below. It already brightened up the kitchen nicely!




We also whitewashed the fireplace brick (25% paint, 75% water -- two coats) and that will really brighten up the kitchen since the backside of it is one of the kitchen "walls". 


We are also having the kitchen cabinets painted white. The island will likely be a darker gray that coordinates well with the wall color. I am considering doing satin brass pulls which is a little more trendy than I'd usually go, but they look so beautiful to me and can also help with the fact that there's a good amount of brass hardware in the house. I found THESE on Amazon which I love, but there's only one left so the price is pretty high on it. I hope when they get more in stock, the price goes down to what it should be. 

Atlas Homewares 234-B 3-1/2-Inch The Moderns Collection Dap Bin Cup Pull, Satin Brass

Here's a photo I found on Pinterest that shows how they could potentially look (the finish on these is a tad different). She is one of my favorite design bloggers and she used pulls from Martha Stewart's line at Home Depot. 

hunted interior: Kitchen Reveal with Martha Stewart Living™:

So, on to the floors. We are going with a darker stain. Bye-bye, honey toned floors. I think we are settling on Jacobean for the stain. I do have a little concern that we're going too dark, but we do love the look of dark hardwoods. In the below photo, Jacobean is closest to that open floor register.


There are 11 register covers that we will replace. Ian picked this one up at Lowe's but I found a different option on Amazon that's a lot more cost-effective and will match the floors better. We want them to blend in as well as they can.


Decor Grates AJH410-RB Oriental Floor Register, Rubbed Bronze, 4-Inch by 10-Inch

We will be changing out the light fixture in the breakfast area (that's where I may use the pendant light I scored on Overstock -- this one -- unless the color isn't right. To be decided....) and add some nice window treatments. 

Gold Leaf Moroccan 4-light Chandelier

So, in a nutshell, that's why I'm not sleeping well at night! So many decisions to be made on the home, and all from two and a half hours away in the mountains. 

If you have any input on cabinet/island paint colors or the stain for our hardwood floors, I would LOVE to hear from you! And if you have any penny-pinching tips for kitchen renovations, I am all ears. Alllllllllll ears. 

25 comments:

  1. Love the color you are going for the floors. Can't wait to see the cabinets painted - crazy how a little paint can make such a huge difference!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I LOVE the dark stain on the floors, the only thing you might want to think about is if you get another dog any hair that that sweet dog sheds is going to be super visible. My house has pretty dark floors and I ended up purchasing a Roomba vacuum to deal with it. I still love my floors though! And I second the idea of painting the kitchen island a different color. Can't wait to see progress pictures!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds like it's going to look great! I would kill for a kitchen island. We did some renovations to our kitchen a couple of years ago but our house isn't set up for that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love the look of dark floors- HATE chasing down dog hair and toddler messes. I swear they show everything. Granted-- I don't know if there is a floor out there that will NOT show toddler messes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just a thought, after seeing the pictures, could you build in a microwave shelf where the dog bowls are? There is already a plug and you are painting the cabinets so if there is enough space it seems like an easy option. Do you have a plug in your pantry? You could also put it in there. You could even put it on a little cart with extra storage!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ummm this is so fun (to watch)! I can't wait to see what you do, but I love the gold/brass pulls and while they are a little trendy, I think overall it's a classic look

    ReplyDelete
  7. Um. LOVING all the choices you have made so far!!! I really like the color that you guys have chosen for the hardwood floors and I am absolutely in love with the fact that you are painting the kitchen cabinets white. That white wash brick wall is going to look so amazing!! It's so fun to get to see your new space get transformed!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh I love those drawer pulls! I want to switch ours out in the kitchen to give it a little more oomph.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sooo excited to see the 'after' pics!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Check out Ikea...they have brass pulls! We will be doing something similar in our kitchen.

    ReplyDelete
  11. We have very dark hardwood floors. We get tons of compliments on them BUT they show all the dust and dirt. Invest in a good swiffer or cordless vac.

    ReplyDelete
  12. We are in the midst of a kitchen renovation here as well and I am painting my cabinets white using Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee - weird name for a white paint but I saw a lot of kitchens on Houzz that used this color.

    I love the brass pulls and its OK to be trendy! Plus, if you dont like them in a few years, they are easy to be replaced.

    Looking forward to more pics!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Swiffer makes an XL version which is awesome for my full house of hardwoods. 😉

    ReplyDelete
  14. I just love the color choice of the floors! Please share on how you are staining the floors. :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Great choices! We made similar choices when we moved into our home, going with 'Worldly Gray' for most of the interior and 'Dark Walnut' for the floors. Something I learned that may interest you - our original choice for floors was Jacobean, but after discovering we had white oak (not red oak) floors, we were advised to switch to Dark Walnut as white oak absorbs more of the stain and Jacobean may come out as Espresso when fully cured. My goal was to go dark, but still be able to see the grain, which Dark Walnut delivered. Renovating is so much fun, but A TON of work and stress. I'll be cheering you on!

    ReplyDelete
  16. It is looking sooo good!! Can't wait to see it all come together! We just redid the floors in our new house (and painted the cabinets white too). My advice on the floors - dark does show everything. I had a friend go almost black and every single footprint showed. We decided to go medium brown (on white oak) and then do a semi gloss instead of a high gloss finish (hoping that a semigloss will hide more mess). Love the pulls you chose - we still have to change ours (they have a floral theme - ha)!

    ReplyDelete
  17. My only input is a mama friend advised me not to use cup pulls because they get sticky quickly with little fingers and can become a bit unsanitary . I just thought I'd pass along what she said. Otherwise I love the whitewashed brick and gray idea ..pretty!

    ReplyDelete
  18. we just had our floors redone and what a mess!!!!! You are lucky you are not having to be near there. One item, we had a satin finish done on the floors, and I wish it was glossier. I do think the dark you've picked is very nice. It all looks great!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Ahhh I love love love your house! I agree with some of the other commenters about the dark floors. We also have white cabinets and super dark (laminate, not real hardwood) floors in our home, it shows every.single.thing. While it looks super nice when it's clean, it never looks clean. We don't have any kids yet, but we do have two dogs so there is constantly a mix of dog hair, water spots, and footprints all over the floor. It drives me insane and if I could redo it, I probably would. Ps. The pulls are beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Congratulations on the new home- it's beautiful! I am loving all of your ideas!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Did you have a darker floor in your previous home? We went with a dark laminate in our kitchen and there is a part of me that regrets it. We have a long haired orange cat. So in between her hair and the general crumbs that come with a kitchen, I'm sweeping all the time! I LOVE the way that it looks, but there is a part of me that wishes we had gone perhaps a shade lighter, or a laminate that is more gray. But I have white cabinets and Sherwin Williams Mega Greige in the kitchen, so I know you're making fabulous choices :)

    ReplyDelete
  22. Definitely no to the Tuscan kitchen! Totally with you on that. I love everything that you guys are planning to do... it's going to look amazing when you're done!

    ReplyDelete
  23. We did a mix of Jacobean and another color on our floor. I had our designer at work help me. It was beautiful and not too dark but of course that made it a custom color and I didn't write it down. I want to say it was 75% Jacobean and 25% something a little lighter. Just a thought if you want your guy to do more stain samples. Either way I'm sure they'll be beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  24. I am loving your choices for the kitchen and hardwood floors. It's going to be beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Granite counter tops and quality cabinets can make your entire home feel better, not just the kitchen. The value of your home is sure to get a nice little boost from all the improvements you've made. I've got granite in my kitchen, and I refuse to go back to any other kind of counter top surface.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...