What’s Up: Kitchen Edition

I’ve been busy tiling, painting, stripping wallpaper, and agonizing over the little details of our kitchen update for the past 2 weeks now. Needless to say, that’s left little time for blogging.

Of course, I’m trying to keep the budget as small as possible, yet create a space we’ll enjoy for the next 5-7 years that we’ll be living here. In comparison to my original kitchen plan (circa 2010), we’ve decided to forgo the herringbone pattern for the subway tile and stick to a classic running bond pattern. Additional color also made its way into the palette, too.

To bring you up to speed, here’s the design plan for the space….

1. Paint cabinets – Benjamin Moore Simply White & Witching Hour are the colors we’ve chosen.  There are a million tutorials for cabinet painting on the internet, but I’m sticking closely to Jenny’s because she used a product to significantly reduce the visible grain in painted wood.  Sometimes wood grain is okay, but not on my kitchen cabinets.

2. Classic subway tile with greige grout

3. Greige paint on the walls – I’ve been dying to use Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter somewhere, and I’m glad to finally give it a go in my kitchen.  After the wallpaper is removed, I’ll be priming and painting away.

4. Granite has already been installed – This was actually one of first things we did in the kitchen (after patching all the drywall holes).  According to my installer, it’s called New Kashmir White, not to be confused with commonly available Kashmir White, which has more creamy & yellow undertones.  This granite strictly has gray & white undertones with the same purple/garnet spots as the regular Kashmir White.  I love it!

5. Ceramic wood floor tiles in a handscraped texture – We’ve already sourced these and the color we’ll be using.  Just need to put in an order.

6. Window treatments – matchstick shades with Cats Cradle fabric

7. Open shelving – Ikea Lack floating shelves in white, just like the ones John & Sherry used in their last kitchen reno.

8. Magnetic bulletin chalkboard on side of fridge – This is pretty self explanatory and will be used to post our schedules, grocery list, etc.

9. Cabinet & Pantry storage solutions – Still researching this one and deciding on the best solutions for our family.

There are also some smaller details that will make their way into the next phase of the design, like a built-in banquet with added storage and some kind of cool table for the eat-in area. Overall, I feel very blessed & grateful that we’re able to update the kitchen now and make it more ‘us’.