Kitchen Reno & Inspiration

As you may or may not know, we are in the process of remodeling the kitchen in our 1820's home. I love a lot of what the kitchen offers.. like the original pantry and lots of natural light.. but because of the choppy lay out there isn't a lot of storage and counter space. That's about to change!

The kitchen was probably my least favorite room in the house when we moved in. The walls were an awful yellow and I think that's what did me in. I couldn't wait to paint over it. There were these totally yuck tiles on the wall behind the sink and they weren't even symmetrical? I don't get what whoever was thinking with these??

 Stefan snapped a picture of me making garlic bread one day.. clearly I got those tiles down pretty quickly. Well.. all but one. It had to stay a bit longer because I may or may not have accidently pulled a chunk of wall out with it!

There was a huge jut-out in the wall above the stove which made the room feel even smaller and the back door was red. All of these things were very minor.. but it just wasn't exactly inviting me to cook dinner seven nights a week. lol!

We've been making small changes to the kitchen in the four months we've been here (can you believe it's been that long already?!) but we are just now starting the major kitchen project.

Here's the things we've done so far:

-Took the tiles off the wall

-Painted the room Steamed Milk by Sherwin Williams

-Hung a wall cabinet by the sink for cups

-Painted the back door White and Contended by Sherwin Williams

-Hung my chalkboard (she'll be moving soon though)

-Hung my "In Christ Alone" sign

-Hung a new chandelier (50 dollars at Goodwill.. brand new!!)

-Removed the jut-out above the stove (old non-working chimney)

-Started to remove the stairway in the kitchen

The last thing was just yesterday. Basically, there's a stairway to the basement in the kitchen. Stefan and his dad built a new stairway in the front of the house so that we can remove the one in the kitchen and gain more kitchen space. I'm so lucky to have such handy men around! The stairs are gone as well as all of the old plaster walls and the wood planks that go behind them. Lol. Next step will be actually removing the wall from the kitchen. My chalkboard is currently on this wall so I'm deciding where it's new home will be.




Since our home is pretty old and we both are very old souls.. we want our kitchen to have a farmhouse feel. Some things I 
know will be included are: farmhouse (apron front) sink, ladder, booth seat, white cabinets, and wood counter tops. Here's the plan I drew up of what  our kitchen and dining room will look like. It is to scale, except we'll have to make minor adjustments after realizing the back wall in the stairwell was not flush with the back wall of the kitchen. We also realized that it may be possible to have an exposed beam. Eeek! That made me pretty happy. I included both rooms because the entry to the kitchen off of the dining will be changing. Right now, you walk in where the booth seat will be.

These pictures have been my inspiration

Hope you all enjoyed the start of this project with me. I can't wait to share once it's all finished!