life is back to normal, just a little better than before…finally! we started our reno on jan 17 and finished just this past weekend. as much as i adore our contractor, im glad to have a little break (im sure ill see him soon with some more projects in mind). but for now, we will enjoy all that is complete.
i love everything about it!
i put this last post together to help anyone out there that is heading into an overwhelming renovation. i am including answers to my most FAQ from other posts as well as some little tips that may help make an overwheleming experience a little less painful.
we knew from the get go that we wanted painted cabinets, just a preference, but i wanted light, bright and airy. i also knew i wanted a modern but not cold feel to the cabinets a quickly choose a shaker style. i was fortunate enough to see these cabinets and the color in real life use, which helped make deciding from a little store swatch a little easier.
that was a HUGE step in the planning process, and the easiets one for me to make. i never realized how tedious all the other “stuff” was going to be. things you dont really pay much mind to like cabinets handles became as final as choosing my babies names! but then i realized a couple things along the way that just made it easier because these decisions kind of pick the answers for me.
determining my absolute must haves right from the begining made most of my decisions for me, because they had to work together and by choosing these things first, the rest of the renovation just flowed along. simle things, stupid things really, but once we made those decisions the rest was cake.
#1: cabinet color: obviously the most important. i pinned and googled and watched all the home imprvements stores i could. i looked at every house i was invited into, making little mental notes. i quickly realized i kept coming back to the very same look every time. and so it was. delisciously cream cabinets (ironcially names white chocolate) would be the center of our new kicthen.
#2. when it came time to lay it all out, i was a little overwhelmed. i am fortunate enough to have some awesome clients, friends and family that with all their ideas on design helped us think outside the box. the biggest decision that was made for me, was including an island. we knew we kind of wanted one. more counter space, more cabinet space but most of all for a microwave. whats that you say? a microwave? an island, jsut for a microwave. well kind of. i knew for sure i DID NOT want a microwave over my stove. 1. i didnt want it out of reach for the kids 2. i wanted a fancy hood over my range, a microwave over it wouldnt allow for that. and i also didnt want my microwave taking up all my new glorious counter top space. so where the heck do you put the most used appliance in our house? we need an island! so be it, our cabinet designer speced out the perfect size for the island to fit perfectly in our space and problem solved, an island it is!
#3. accents, of the accents. the thought of picking out cabinet handles was makng me sweat. i tossed around a brushed bronze versus polished silver…not only where there tons of different silvers and bronzes and golds, there were styles up the wazoo and i stood in lowes almost in tears, full of anxiety, what to choose. then i had a DUH moment. I knew for sure that i wanted the mason ja pendant light from pottery barn. it was just always meant to be. a little southern loving for my space and i had to have it. well guess what???? its brushed nickle mason jar tops would only