I love food blogs, but I also love finding inspiration for our home on design blogs. You’ll see some of my favorite decorating and design blogs in the “reading list”.  I thought I would share with you some of our home before and after photos and some inspiration photos.

Kitchen

I truly believe the kitchen is the heart of the home. It’s the place friends gravitate to during parties, it’s the place I spend hours each day making breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for my family, it’s where I roll out cookie dough with a curly haired three year old. 

What we have done:

  • hardwood floors by Renga Interiors (obviously the most dramatic transformation) 
  • fresh coat of white paint over dingy beige cabinets
  • new hardware. Pulls from Restoration Hardware, knobs from Capitol Hardware
  • new stainless trash compactor and dishwasher from KitchenAid
before
After/In Progress
  Things we would still like to do with the kitchen: 
  • replace counter tops with white marble 
  • replace back splash with subway tiles
  • new faucet. A farmhouse sink would be lovely too. 
  • In my fantasy land, I would knock out the wall where the fridge is so that the kitchen is only separated from the family room by an island peninsula.

Here is the inspiration: 

Country Living photo. This is the kind of faucet I’m thinking of. 

This beauty is from one of my favorite home blogs, Honey We’re Home. Megan’s whole house is totally my style and I love watching it evolve.

Nora Walker’s kitchen on Brothers and Sisters

 Christopher Peacock’s kitchen. Love that pop of orange on the window treatment. Really I love everything about this kitchen. We love the white cabinets with the dark hardwood floors (obviously since that’s what we went with in our house).
 
The coveted kitchen  from Something’s Gotta Give. 
 A Something’s Gotta Give copycat kitchen
 Ina Garten’s kitchen as seen in House Beautiful. Her kitchen won “Kitchen of the Year” from House Beautiful. It’s so gorgeous. I love how open it is and that it’s rustic, but still elegant and refined.
Kitchen Desk

before

after

What we did:

  • fresh coat of white paint on cabinets
  • cup pulls and crystal knobs from Restoration Hardware
  • Calacatta Gold Marble slab. I found this beautiful piece as a remnant at Century Stone. Now just imagine the whole kitchen like this. Calacatta Gold has these amazing flecks of gold in it. I highly recommend it. Unless you obsess over keeping your counter tops in perfect condition – white marble stains easily, but if you think like a European and take the stains and imperfections as a sign of a good life, then go for it. I love the story of Meg Ryan rubbing tomatoes into her new white marble kitchen. 

Powder Room

before/during

after

This powder room was clearly horrendous. The sink had already been ripped out when I took the “before” photo, but the sink was on a boxy cabinet that made the room feel tiny and dark. The brown toilet had to go. Immediately. We re-did this room on a budget, but the change was dramatic.

What we did:

  • I painted the walls Sherwin Williams Agreeable Grey
  • new toilet and pedestal sink from Home Depot
  • goose neck faucet from Amazon. Looks just like Restoration Hardware, but a fraction of the price.
  • glass ledge over toilet and new hardware from Pottery Barn on sale.

What’s next? 

We just painted the master bedroom Silver Sage from Restoration Hardware and love it. We’re in the process of deciding on drapery fabrics, which turns out to be as easy as choosing a shade of white paint, which is not easy at all…