In the Beginning
In a world where everyone Instagrams their food and cocktails, I had to wonder, could a small town girl like me make it in the world of social media?
Let's find out.
So I guess I should start and the middle and then work back to the beginning like a Quentin Tarrintino Film. I don't know If i'm that skilled to do that though. So, I'll give a little back story of our house and you can understand the obsession I have with Design, and why due to change of careers and cities, My education took a back burner. ( There's more about that on my about page.)
So, I've lived in my home for about 13 yrs now. Our house in a 1950's style Four square home. With those of you not familiar with four square its just a fancy term for what Wright built back in the early 1900's.
So I lied, our house is from the 1900's, the decor (kitchen, bathroom's ) were from the 1950's. Carpeting and wallpaper everything! Fun. So for an design student or architect, for me anyways. Its a dream. Sometimes a nightmare, but still a dream. I'm constantly updating, or fixing, lol - seriously I heard of this movie called Money Pit, if I wasn't so young I'd swear it was written about me. lol, not lol.
So, Since being here, we've had every first home owners nightmare. We had the whole house rewired, along with the plumbing, I say we because I'm not pretending I foot the whole bill on this one. I've had tremendous help from family members, and friends who've been family who have helped me build this. And when I say build, I mean literally everything has been done on this house.
So, Let's get started, my house has 2 kitchens, and 3 bathrooms. 1 full, two half/ baths. Strange I know for such a small house but amazing for when I was potty training a toddler.
Our Kitchen was EXTREMELY small, and worked okay for what I needed at the time, but as my family grew and spent more time here, It called for more.
Which leads to this:
Before:
These were two seperate rooms. Behind this wall, was another small room, an addition built on.
So, our kitchen was a 1950's style room. It looked much better growing up, please don't think we always lived like this. LoL
It sat unlived in for over 10 years. :( So lonely. It was impeccable when my grandparents were alive.
So we swapped out our pink vintage stove ( which I'm kicking myself for now. A friend of mine too ;( Sorry ) Updated the hardware, kept the existing cabinets and placed wallpaper coverings on the ceiling.
I also chose a benjamin moore paint, which I love. I will find that and include that in another post later.
So this was taken in '16. There were still some minor updates. Appliances, paint. Cosmestic, that sorta thing. I also should note, this was taken while the construction process was happening, (obviously) i.e. the floors. We didn't walk around without flooring, lol.
So due to some creative differences, a.k.a. they left after us having paid the bill. Shocker. Hope you guys like the coast of France! I've had plenty more time to plan and basically design what exactly I wanted for this Kitchen.
We live on a hill and the concept behind it would be that I would have a large island centered where I could stand and cook dinner while my children did their homework together.
We also have a lovely view of the backyard. So I can cook or bake and have the perfect eyes view of them to the yard.
We ran into some obstacles. First being that I wanted an Island a very large one, that featured two sinks and a dishwasher.
It wasn't the additional plan to have the columns, due to the fact that it was a load bearing wall. Seeing that the plumbing and heating ducts were in the center of the room. Working together we realized with slight compromise I could still have my island, I would just have to sacrifice the complete open floor plan. And it works.
The Cabinets and flooring all came from lowes. The doors as well came from lowes. I like to shop local, we have friends who own their own companies who have beautiful flooring and marble counter tops, ( Roma Tile, located In Syracuse, but due to large scale of the project and amount of work being done. It wasn't within our budget. I have plenty more projects up my sleeve though.
The columns will most likely have some architecural details added in the form of mouldings along the pillars and top. Ive seen tile done before, I'm not sure, and because of the price of the tile the risk wouldn't be too bad if it didn't come out right.
I've also seen bookshelves and wine racks built into columns as well. So I might try that.
One of my ALL TIME favorite designers right now for home design, is Allen + Roth. I buy EVERYTHING from them. lol Curtains, rugs, I fiend. The tile we used for the back splash along with the light fixtures were both theirs.
I think this had a price point at about $41 a piece. Which you can't beat considering the original light fixtures I was looking at were priced at 600. A piece. I know.
One of the photos I got inspiration from was this one. I change my rooms in my home, like most people change their socks.
Thank God I'm not married, because I would probably drive that man crazy.
This type of old ceilings always reminds me of restaurants on the lower east side, with the menu written on mirrors. I use this photo because although our kitchen is small. I like the look of a tin ceiling, but I don't want it dominating the whole space.
So this is style I will be using in the future.
At the moment I am looking for unique hardware preferably silver to compliment the tone of the room. Any styles anyone has used suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking Italian, and anything resembling Vans Cleef & Arpels. ;)
Chairs are the ever so P o p u l a r which I believe I got mine on amazon for 4 for for under 100 bucks. I only needed the three, but these chairs are a steal considering some places charge 100 a pop. So we just store one and bring out for when there is more company over.
So I think that about covers all of it for now. I'm still going to be doing ALOT more work, i.e. wine fridges, possible SMEG refirgerator. Lots lots more. So thanks for reading and more to come!
Xo Cait
O. soh