July 28, 2015

Mini Kitchen Makeover | The Reveal


Good Morning.  I hope everyone's summer is going well.  I am excited to finally share our kitchen with you all today!  We started with a very dark kitchen and I absolutely love how bright and fresh it looks now!  Our home is only about 4 1/2 years old, so we already had really nice cabinets, stainless appliances and a great layout.  Therefore, our changes were not major structural ones, but instead smaller cosmetic ones.



I love the look of an all white on white kitchen.  We started a couple of years ago with painting the cabinets white which you can see more of here and here.  And we finally completed the look about a month ago by adding the white subway tile backsplash.  I was back and forth on whether to lay it horizontal or do a herringbone pattern, as well as whether to do a light or dark grout.  Both looks I really liked, but finally decide to stick to a simple, classic look and go with the horizontal pattern and light grout.  We did the backsplash ourselves, which was fairly easy once we got the hang of it.  The harder part was actually removing the old tile and repairing the drywall before we could even get started.  Before we installed the new backsplash, we also added under cabinet lighting which is wonderful!  My husband did all the electrical work for those and I'm so excited that I can actually prepare food on our back counter tops now.



Lighting was the next change we made.  You can see in the before picture below that we started with 3 smaller pendants over our island.  For this makeover, I wanted to eliminate one of the small lights and instead switch to two large pendants.  While hunting for lighting, I came across this round, wood chandelier and fell in love with it!  So I decide, why not move the current breakfast table pendant (very similar here) to the island, buy one more to match, and replace the breakfast light with this pretty round one.  Great plan, until the new island pendant arrived and was ever so slightly different from the old one.  Ugh!!  Same store, same name, but it had been changed a tiny bit.  So much for saving a little $$$, as I had to order a second island pendant.  But after all that I love how it all turned out and how they compliment each other!



 
The breakfast area also got a little refresh.  In addition to the new light, I also purchased new chairs (love the gray finish on these) and decided to paint my pedestal table white.  We used the same spray technique as we did on some of our previous painted furniture projects.  And to give the table a protective finish we sealed it with 3 coats of polycrylic which will hopefully help it stand up to our daily use.
 
 
 
Would love to maybe change out the faucet one day and of course a lighter color granite would be so lovely, but it is not in our current budget.  So, it will stay as is.  For now :) 
 
Source List
Paint Colors
  • cabinets - Kwal Paint Pure Snow
  • walls - Kwal Paint Bone White
  • trim - Kwal Paint Pure Snow
 
Have a wonderful day!!
Linking at the Pretty Preppy Party
 
 
We can also keep in touch here:
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July 23, 2015

Sweet and Salty Recipes


 
Hi there!  We are still beach'in it but I wanted to pop in and share a few of my favorite recipes that I like to make for vacation.  Food and drinks are definitely a major part of our vacations plans.  I am a dip/appetizer girl and I also have a major sweet tooth.  I could seriously go to a restaurant and just order appetizers and desserts :)  Here are a few of my favorites above.  You can click on the links below each pic for a full recipe.  For this trip I made the candy surprise cookies and this dip
  
Lots more yummy recipes under my 'FOOD' tab.  All taste-tested and approved!
 
Have a wonderful day!



July 16, 2015

What is #YourHomeStyle?

 
 
Hi there!  Today, I wanted to quickly pop in to let you know about a fun weekly Design/Décor Series I'm co-hosting on Instagram with 4 other super talented design bloggers.  We want to see your home style.  Each week on Tuesday we announce a new photo challenge theme and you simply post a picture of that week's theme and hashtag it #YourHomeStyle.  This week we are looking for entry ways or foyers.  Then the following Monday we feature our favorite on all 5 of our IG accounts.  And what's great is you don't have to have a blog to join, just an instagram account!  Fun, right?  We have seriously been blown away by all the beautiful homes each week sometimes sending our voting into overtime :)  Below are a few of my favorites from the previous weeks' themes so you can see for yourself what I mean.


 
 
 
 
So gorgeous!  So come join the Instagram fun! 

P.S.  The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale is open to the public tomorrow.  And today is the last day for cardholders to shop deals before things sell out tomorrow.  And you can still earn double reward points through today.  See previous post for the details and some of my favorites!  Happy Shopping!