To all of you brave souls out there that have remodeled your home or any home for that matter, mad props because as we discovered, it ain’t for the faint of heart. In fact, it can be pretty hard core. In 2016, we began the search for our first little humble abode. Up till then, we had rented a little house-turned-apartment since we’d gotten married in 2015. We were finally ready for that big step and so we began looking. Only problem was, it seemed everything was either too expensive or just fuddy duddy for the part of town we wanted to be in. So, pretty early on we became open to the idea of remodeling in order to get closer to what we were looking for.
Even though this is our first house and remodeling may seem excessive, we think we’ll be in this house a while and it really is a great option if you can get the house for a good price and then use the leftovers from your budget for the remodel.
With that said, I’ve discovered a dormant obsession with designing a space and decorating. I took to it 'fastly' and 'fiercly'. Sure, at times I questioned my sanity scouring the internet for hours searching for that perfect matte black hinge because I didn’t like the shiny one, but I do believe the look is made in the details and definitely worth it in the end. We’re so pumped with how our vision turned out and may consider doing it again in the future*.
*way in the future
I look forward to showing you what we did little by little. Firstly, just for a visual, you can see below how our house was laid out when we bought it and then how we knocked down walls to make it more of that “open concept” we were craving.
Point being, it’s amazing what a little hammering can do to a closed-off space.
The Kitchen
It’s the first thing your eye sees when you walk in through the front door and although it’s on the smaller side, it’s living proof you can still rock the small space. Just so you understand, here’s what we were working with...
Small, tight, and old. After knocking down the wall dividing the kitchen from the living room and dining space, we got busy messing around with the layout of the kitchen. (This part was quite difficult, actually). We learned that a measuring tape and some bright tape were our best friends. We taped out different layouts and would spend some time mock-living in the space to see if it flowed well or if we'd hit the dishwasher on the pull-out trashcan-that sort of thing. The only other major thing we did besides tear down walls is fill in the backdoor with drywall and move the backdoor out of the kitchen entirely.
Now it was getting fun.
We decided we'd have as big of an island as we could fit in the space and we put our big farmhouse sink (pinterest dream turned reality) on the island along with the dishwasher. We also decided to do a different paint on the island for a little contrast.
For the perimeter cabinets, we put the lower cabinets in an L shape and only put upper cabinets on one wall and just decided to subway tile the other. I'm very pleased with the clean look it left us with. It also allowed us to do some floating shelves which were essential for the look. Another thing on the cabinets-we went with Home Depot which to be honest I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get the look I wanted (just cause there's the reputation that HD/Lowe's have more cookie-cutter styles/colors and less able to "customize") however, I was incredibly pleased with the end product. Even though many of the things I asked for were not typical for them, they worked those graphics till they got it right and made my dreams a reality. So that was a neat learning I happily pass on.
Perhaps the biggest statement in the kitchen is the backsplash behind the oven. I LOVE Moroccan tile (Morocco trip post coming soon :)) and thought taking it to the ceiling would make the room look larger. Also, the room could handle the busyness of the pattern because everything else was mostly white with clean lines. Needless, to say, pumped with the outcome. For those that aren't familiar with Moroccan tile, it's essentially concrete tile that's been hand-painted (or made to look hand-painted).
As for the countertops, I could write an entire blog post about how involved it was to choose them out HA but in the end, we went with butcher block on the perimeter and an engineered hard surface a.k.a. more-durable "marble" for the island (<-highly recommend).
Yes, it was a ton of work but it's incredibly satisfying to wind up with something you LOVE. So for anyone thinking about it, wishing you all the patience but mostly fun!
Best,
Shay
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