Our Ever-Changing Kitchen Remodel

I've been asked by so many to do a post on our Kitchen, but have always avoided it because it has never felt "finished". It dawned on me the other day, that it may actually never "feel finished". I've realized in my 32 years that by the time I finally get around to making a room feel complete, I have moved on to yet another style, color scheme, or big idea. So, from start to finish, our semi-complete, Heart of the Home...

Our Kitchen:

 Believe it or not, this is what the kitchen looked like when we decided to purchase this 100+ year old house. Not only was it the ugliest kitchen I'd ever seen, not one thing made a lick of sense. We started by happily gutting the entire space.

 It had a chimney that had been dry-walled over, a window that looked into the garage, YES you read that right, a window overlooking an enclosed garage! It had cabinets of all sorts in all of the wrong places, and an oven that stuck right out in the middle of the walkway. But, somehow, through all of this, I had a vision.

Out with the wall dividing the Kitchen and Dining Room, out with the funky garage-view window, and out with the ugly oak cabinets! My goal was to transform what once resembled a cave into a bright and airy kitchen with as much natural light as possible.

 This is the view from the Kitchen looking toward the Dining Room and Living Room.

Where once stood a dividing wall, is now an open space with breakfast bar.

The only thing that remained in the Kitchen was the original wood flooring. A little (okay a lot) of TLC, and the old floors are new again.

I wanted to have a piece of cabinetry that felt like a built-in hutch, so the section next to the refrigerator has pretty feet (unlike the rest of the lower cabinets). The uppers have corbels mounted to the bottom that match the open shelves on the opposite wall, and some of my favorite knobs from Anthropologie. Another little surprise is the expanded metal we used in the cabinet doors. It ties in with the pantry door, and our staircase. After cutting to size, we washed it with a push broom, soap and water, then spray primed and painted it black.

Here is a view from the Dining Room looking in.

The wood slab that makes up the breakfast bar is from my late Grandfather, and is supported by some antique architectural corbels I picked up at a local sale.

The open shelves were a risky choice in a small Kitchen, but have really helped in making the space seem larger and brighter.

Pendant light kits and old rusty Crawfish traps were an inexpensive lighting option for overhead, and cast the most beautiful pattern on the ceiling above. They also lend a nice contrast to the crystal Dining Room chandelier.

While yes, I have a business that specializes in Cowgirl Canteens (fancy hip flasks for women), my husband and I are actually fans of microbrew beer. So, this old bottle opener on the end of the breakfast bar gets it's fair share of use.

One smart splurge in the Kitchen was the apron front sink. I love it!

I made up for that splurge by installing all of the white, subway, backsplash tile by myself.

One thing I've had to get used to is not having a window above the sink.

Instead, I took an old antique frame, gave it a face lift and turned it into a cork board for all of the pretty pictures my girls make for me, any important reminders, and a plethora of other random things.

To the right of the refrigerator is a mirror/apron holder, and to the right of that is the pantry.

In my opinion, a pantry is a must if you are going to opt for the open shelves.

For the door, I found an old screen door, replaced the original screen with the expanded metal and added the gate hinges for a little extra fun.

The door to the Mud Room was swapped out for a glass door and an old sash window was installed above my desk area to maximize natural light.

So why isn't it "finished"?

Well, I have an old butcher block that my Grandfather used to cut meat on that is awaiting a new set of wood-turned legs that will become my new island...until then, I have this antique flour table that sits center stage.