In The Kitchen~Part I: Finding your style and decorating

Here is my kitchen people.  :)

Still have some plans for it, but this is it for now.  Notice the stainless steel microwave?  But white dishwasher and fridge (and oven).  Well, my friends the microwave was the first to die after we moved in here 3.5 years ago.  Hubby wanted to know why on earth I wanted to replace it with something that didn't match.  Well, as you all know, they will all eventually die and years from now I will have all stainless steel!  ;)

Ok, so I love my kitchen.  It's nice and roomy.  When we started looking at houses it was certainly something I judged a house by.  Our old house, I loved it so, and had a decent sized kitchen and LOTS of counter space and eat in bar (though no space for an actual table and we used the counter space, not as an eating area, but just as space since it was up against a wall).  However the last kitchen did not have a pantry or much storage space.

This kitchen does not lack either.  But it does lack counter space.  

I do get 2 sinks which is quite the luxury, but there's not much prep room.

So therefore, I keep minimum as far as 'stuff' on the counter.  The aside from our necessities of a toaster oven, coffee pot and roll of paper towels, there is just fruit on the horizontal spaces (which is actually a necessity too as we go through amazing amounts of apples, bananas and oranges).

Now for the nitty gritty.  My style as probably noted before is quite VERY casual, playful, kinda of eclectic and contemporary.  We have nothing in our home that would be declared as formal or even maybe 'nice' for that matter.  lol  But we live with 4 children.  And we like it that way.  This is their home too.  I like that they and their friends are comfortable here.

So this table stays clear aside from some fruit so there is room for homework, snack times, crafting and family time.

As far as my curtains go, find the tutorial here if you'd like to make similar cafe curtains.  And the pear art work you can find here.

Now for all those open shelves.  We have this cabinet here on the side.  In between the doors to the deck and across from the pantry and leading to the hallway where the laundry resides.  It took me a while when we moved in to figure out what to put here.  Then I did as I always do.  I use practical, useful but of course colorful things to fill it up.  The bottom shelf is all the kids.  Afternoon snacks with their plated and bowls.  The kids lunch boxes live here too...easy access for them to put away and for me to grab in the mornings....more on kid kitchen stuff coming up.  Top shelf is just some of my kitchen type stuff all based on whimsy and color.

Some of the doors on my cabinets have glass so of course I fill them up with as much color as I can.  My eclectic dish collection.  Mainly inexpensive stuff from Target.  Couple of Anthro bowls and my vintage/antique mug collection I got years ago from an antique store...that lime green one is my fav.

Then there's my newly hung roller shades.  These doors originally had some kind of cellular shades or something that broke and tangled.  I would just leave them without anything, but in the summer the sun goes down right through those windows and the sun comes right in on our eyes at dinner time.  Not to mention pulling the shades down in the late part of the hot Alabama afternoon makes my kitchen much more bearable for cooking dinner!  Anyway, you know I couldn't just hang boring ole white roller shades.  I painted them with acrylic paints and a round sponge and hot glued a rope pull on the end.

Ok, so there's not much to see, but here's some before's.

This is when we first moved in.  Notice the hardware...no, let me show you....

This hideousness was on all the cabinets.  Notice I have a ton of cabinets?!  So not only is it a lot of hardware to buy, but that long skinny extra thing with the knobs, created not one, but 2 holes in every cabinet.  So it could not be replaced by just switching out knobs.  Luckily, I found a supplier...very inexpensive supplier of brushed nickel hardware on eBay.  AND they had cool nickel plates to go with the knobs to cover all those holes!

So what is to come next for my kitchen.  I'm of course dreaming of new appliances one day. And I'd like to replace the countertops and extend it out beyond the prep sink and have bar stools (stainless steel bar stools...drool!) on the other side (on the living room side).  In the more near future I will finally replace that fan and the brass knobs on the french doors.  I would love to say that I'm going to put in a cool pendant light over the table, but did I mention I live in Alabama?  That fan makes all the difference when the temps begin to spike.  So sometimes you just have to be practical.  Sigh....

Oh and I'd LOVE to paint it.  This was the original color.  The reason I haven't yet, is that the ceilings are painted too...same boring blue.  I do not like to entertain the idea of having to paint the ceiling.  And I would have to paint many ceilings as this color goes through out the kitchen, down the hall and all through my living room you see peeking in the pictures, down to this small office space the previous owners called the library without a break.  Dudes, that is SO much ceiling!  Luckily, the blue is light enough I treat it like a neutral.

So shop your cabinets for color if you need filler in your kitchen.  Find your niche.  Browse decorating sites like Apartment Therapy and the like.  LOTS of decorating blogs too.  I know my style isn't for everyone...or most people for that matter.  It seems that cottage-y and more formal styles (red burgandy and golds) are really popular.

Stay true to what is your own eye candy and when you walk into your kitchen you will smile.  :)