We knew when we bought our house in summer 2010 that we wanted to do a few cosmetic things to the kitchen down the road. After a complete demo and remodel to the kitchen in our former house, we are totally spoiled and want to be just as in love with this kitchen. It is where we spend the most time as a family.
It's a great space. It has beautiful light throughout the day and we don't mind the layout. It just needs some updating. Here is what it looked like when we closed on the house:
Immediately we made the island all one level and ditched the granite for a hickory top. We also painted the walls a pretty gray, and added gray tile (leftover from a former project) from the top of the backsplash to the ceiling. We got rid of the blue tile behind the range and replaced it with the same gray tile.
We changed out the light fixtures, replaced the trash compactor with an ice machine, and put an under-the-counter microwave in the place of the third oven. Yes, there were three ovens there.
The goal was to make it more neutral without any huge changes, livable and to our taste for a few years. The week we moved in until now, our kitchen has looked like this:
We wanted to make it at least another year, but a few things have happened that make us think our cosmetic changes might take place sometime in 2012. For example our range is beyond repair and we're in desperate need of a new one. Last week half of my brownie pan baked, and the other half stayed liquid. So I've started clicking around and trying to decide what I want the final kitchen to look like.
For sure we want:
- a new range
- new countertops
- repainted cabinets, possibly refaced but not replaced, with select new cabinet guts
- new pulls
- new floors
After looking at lots of pictures and wanting to go in a different direction that our previous white kitchen, we thought we wanted black cabinets. The Gorilla is a whiz on photoshop and he mocked up what black cabinets would look like.
We hated it. Good thing we didn't make that expensive mistake!
But I'm really pretty darn set on honed marble countertops on the perimeter (we're going to keep the wood top on the island), so we thought maybe we'd keep the white and just do the island black.
We still hated it.
So, hmmmm. My absolute dream would be to have a pattered tile floor that's very graphic. Like here or here. So we mocked up what that might look like (I don't want checkered, but that works for general idea purposes):
Ahhhh, this makes me happy. And it makes me not hate the black island as much.
Our home was built in the 1920's, and The Gorilla and I have very specific taste. I don't have a final direction, but I do like some drama somewhere. You can follow where my head is going on my kitchen remodel pinterest board.
Why have we not used this photoshop mock-up idea before? It really helped us with the vision. Stay tuned as this story unfolds...
ps - do you have honed white marble countertops? I've heard all the mixed reviews, but I really want to speak with someone that actually HAS them. Everyone without them seems to have an opinion, but where are the people who own the kitchens in all the pictures?!
