Sunday, May 22, 2011

Kitchen Updates

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen.  I enjoy cooking, and because we have an open floor plan, I can usually be found sitting at my kitchen table watching TV and playing on the computer while my husband watches TV from our living room.  I went through some old pictures the other day and realized how far we'd come with a few simple kitchen updates.

I took these first pictures of our house when we were house hunting.  The kitchen was painted gold with a tumbled marble backsplash.  It was very nice, but it just wasn't "us"~



The first change we made was to remove the pot rack.  Next we replaced the backsplash with subway tile.  The tile guy thought we were a little crazy to replace a tumbled marble backspash with ceramic subway tile, but the change made us very happy. 


You probably noticed that the kitchen is white in this picture.  That's a long story, but let's just say there was a big miscommunication with a painter who didn't understand the difference between the dining room and the breakfast room.  I quickly chose a new color, a pale grey-green.  I also had a nice Pottery Barn rug (the Sheffield Rug, I think) I loved that coordinated perfectly with the wall color.  Unfortunately, about two weeks after I bought it, Maizy decided to eat the corner of it one night while I was at the gym.  I eventually sold it for a super cheap price on Craigslist.


I liked the color a lot, but with the open floor plan, it really limited my options in the adjoining living room.  I wanted to pull more blues into the living room, so I decided that my best option was to go with a brown.  I chose Tamarind by Benjamin Moore.


Next we added our Pottery Barn light fixture (and I should have checked Overstock.com first!).  And, most recently, we added a new natural fiber rug that I found on Overstock.com for $88!



Because I did the painting myself, we made all of the changes I mentioned in this post for under $1000.  I think we got a lot of bang for our buck! 

While it's not quite my dream kitchen...I would love to have black granite countertops and an island that people could sit around...I do love my kitchen. 

2 comments:

  1. Looks great! I have a tumbled marble backsplash, it was there when we moved in. I love it, but I really wish it was subway tile. Subway tile is so classic and clean looking. One day, I will change it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am loving your updates. I think the subway tile is great. I am so happy that neither of my dogs has chewed a rug. I would be devastated. I guess that sounds a bit melodramatic. But it takes me forever to choose rugs. And then I usually try to wait for a sale.

    ReplyDelete