B&A: Kitchen

Those of you who saw the house before, or the pictures, may remember that the kitchen was...shall we say...a piece of work. Actually, it has many lovely features including:
- It is quite large and spacious,
- It has a huge, literally 60"x76", window, with window seat for kitties, that lets in tremendous light,
- Pull out "Rachel Ray" pantry, and
- White cabinets and light gray counters.
So, all in all, a great base to start from. However, most prominently, the previous owner had favored a red white and blue heart motif. I'm all for it if that's your thing. But, it's not my thing, and it had to go. Unfortunately, some of this motif was, um, built into the infrastructure of the domicile. Specifically, it had been tiled into the large window sill of the large window. What to do? Thankfully, I have a expert painter friend, who knew exactly what to do, and a mother who was willing to do it. After a number of hours spent asphyxiating herself with a tub and tile refinishing product, I had a gleaming and completely unrecognizable (thankfully) windowsill.

Check out the end results below!

Before

The kitchen came with the hard wood style laminate that the powder room had. When I had the hard wood intentionally did not re-do either room. Although it means those floors don't exactly match the hard wood, I plan to eventually put tile in both rooms, so didn't see the point in changing them right now. I'll probably get a sisal rug to put down in the meantime.

Note the fan pulls in the motif.

Looking out into the hallway.

After

Here's the runner in the hallway outside the kitchen. While I absolutely love the color of the hardwood floors, it is quite dark and it is rather hard to see at night. These runners with a lighter pattern have definitely helped.

I got new, light yellow dishes right before I moved and really loved them. Gray seems to be very vogue right now. So, I thought with the white cabinets, gray, yellow, and white would make a nice color palate for the kitchen. After painting about a million test swatches, I went with Behr Silver Drop (790C-2). It's about the most perfect neutral gray you can find. I had thought I might go with something darker, or a little more blue-based, but the counter tops ended up having more tan in them than I thought. But, this color, in a semi-gloss provides the perfect, unobtrusive backdrop for the kitchen.