Kitchen
They say the kitchen is the heart of the home, so why not start there? This was our kitchen when we first purchased our house:
This is a photo of our kitchen a week after we moved in (we had already painted the walls red).
When we moved into our house, every wall was painted the same color beige (there’s still a lot of it left as you will see). I’ve always loved red in the kitchen. It gets me hungry. I think ideally I would have red cabinets! But the wood cabinets in our home were an upgrade, so red walls had to suffice.
We replaced the window in the kitchen the first summer we lived here. We went with white windows and trim, it really brightened up the space!
We also bought different bar stools at one point.
You might be wondering if my kitchen is always so clean. Well, obviously not. But I do keep a pretty clean kitchen. I never grew up with a dishwasher, but I love being able to hide my dirty dishes away and have free counter space.
Then, in 2015, I did a crazy tedious painting project and painted my back splash on to look like faux marble tile!
And after that, the red walls started bothering me; I felt they clashed with the back splash I worked so hard to accomplish. So, in the spring of 2016, I painted the walls white and revamped a few other things for the One Room Challenge blog hop.
Now it looks so much brighter and bigger! I really miss the red sometimes, but the simplicity of white allows me to really add pops of ANY color in the decor of the room, depending on my mood and the season.
There’s still things I would change about my kitchen (more drawers please!) but all in all, I’m happy with where it is at now. Other updates I dream of are black granite counter tops and switching out the boring light fixtures. Maybe someday.
So that is my kitchen. I hope you like it! If you want to see more, check out my house tour.
Nice ideas😄
Wow! Great updates! I actually.. like you.. LOVE the color red in the kitchen but after seeing the clean and bright look of the white and the freedom to bring in whatever POP of color you may want I think I like it better!! And Red could always be that fun pop of color used! Thanks for sharing!!
Ha, thank you Julie! I choose a different color to decorate with in my kitchen depending on the season.
Your kitchen is beautiful but please, beware of black granite – it is a nightmare. When we built our home, we paid EXTRA for the black granite – it is beautiful with very, very tiny specks of copper. BUT… it looks great if you don’t use the kitchen – if you do, lo and behold, you’ll develop some muscles wiping that counter down every two minutes. It shows EVERYTHING – fingerprints, water spots, crumbs and don’t even think about touching it if your fingers have any type of grease on them. My granite was sealed so that’s not the problem – it’s just too difficult to keep looking shiny. I’ve hinted around about changing it, but it would be too costly. Hope this helps! 🙂
Wow thank you for commenting Dolores! You did help me loads, I didn’t realize black granite counters were that infuriating. They sound worse than stainless steel appliances. Thank you for sharing your experience with me!
My little secret to give a pretty shine to stainless steel surfaces such as fridge and dw: first, gently clean off food, other stuck on stuff with damp cloth. Spray a smidge of WD-40 onto terry cloth rag, wipe over surface gently. I do mean a smidge, you don’t want a greasy surface, just a pretty one! Shared by my appliance repair person!
Wow I will have to try that. Thank you Nancy!