The Heart Of The Home

They say that "The kitchen is the heart of the home." And I fully believe this. Pete and I both LOVE to cook and entertain. In fact we fell in love while breading chicken cutlets in his kitchen. True Story. Anyway, every house we looked at, the first place we ran to was the kitchen. Now this kitchen DEFINITELY needs some help. It has some shaky bones and is small But I know we can make it work. When we first saw the kitchen during the open house it was lime green with a gorgeous vinyl floor (You know the kind that will NEVER BE CLEAN) and hunter green counter tops. But the blue bottles in the window, FIREPLACE and fun little chachkies (Which I just learned is Yiddish??) made it feel super cozy. I have always wanted an open plate rack too! Except for some reason these people only put SEVEN spaces!! I literally loose sleep over how much this bothers me, Why not EIGHT?! A Normal place setting you ding bats! Now I will have to take out the bars and move them closer together and pray that eight will fit because I can't live with that kind of malarkey. Pete wanted to get rid of the whole desk section completely and put in a big cupboard but I fought him. Don't get me wrong I am always one for storage and we certainly need it here in this kitchen, but I fell in love with this little nook! I want my laptop right there to look up recipes and Facebook stalk people while I wait for dinner to cook. Who knows, it a year or so I may be over it and want more storage but for now I'm pumped. A project in the future is to make a cork board out of our old wine corks for the wall. I would make it in a frame so that it can be removed, But I want to cover that back wall with a wine cork board to tack up pictures, coupons etc. And let's be honest, It'll only take a week or two to get the corks... As I said before we are working with a tiny budget for the WHOLE house, so we have to get creative and pick and choose what really needs to be done. The truth is, the kitchen is fine the way it is. No leaks or huge cracks anywhere and the appliances seem to be working - it does it's job. I just don't like it! I want brand new appliances that are shiny and not covered in old grease! I want a counter top that doesn't make me throw up a little!! I want cupboards that are functional and stylish that don't fall off in my hands when I open them! Sigh... For now I will have to focus on inspiration and things I can change easily! The whole inspiration for our soon to be gorgeous kitchen was a Tuscan Villa. I went back and forth between my love for things rustic and European and my love for things Bright and coastal. Europe won this war. And it's all thanks to this baby... I saw it at Anthropologie last year for over $900 and I found it at The Maxxsters on clearance for $250! I bought it before we even closed on the house! I just knew, without measuring that it had to be in our home! Our landlord called it "an old industrial sized storage unit" - he thought it was junk. He is an idiot. It just may be the most gorgeous table ever created. The top this beautiful untreated wood and the bottom is old almost rusted steel, and the shelves can be moved up and down. I was hoping to make it out kitchen island and I think it will actually work. The feeling of this table is what I wanted to puke all over our kitchen. The first step was paint. Our kitchen and dining room are open to each other in an L shape, so it was hard to paint them different colours. The kitchen technically stops where the linoleum floor stops. The area with the fireplace is supposed to be a "den". Whateves, I say its still part of the kitchen. But the point is I couldn't divide the spaces without it looking too compartmentalized. So all the walls were painted in Eclipse, which was that old yellow we saw in the Dining room. But we decided to keep the walls plain in the kitchen, instead of continuing with the pearlized look. Already it has made a huge difference. But now the counter tops look even more awful, don't know how much longer I can live with them! I'd love to see something natural like soap stone or concrete, I was never a fan of granite, especially not for the price, I don't care how "in" they are - they ain't IN my budget! I also need to put in a back splash. That is something I am fairly confident that with a little help from DIY.com I can do myself. I just can't decide what I want. Originally I wanted white subway tile with a few ceramic Mediterranean/Italian painted tiles thrown in. But now I feel the subway tiles would be too modern. But I would love to incorporate the Italian ceramic somehow, I absolutely fell in love with the gorgeous red, blue and yellow colours when I was in Capri and really want to showcase them somehow. I really like that the cabinets are white but they are made of really cheap wood and not painted in the inside. One thought would be to remove the cabinets completely in the corner to the right of the sink and have open shelves. Very farm house/cottage and I wouldn't have to worry about painting that section of cabinet, I'd also like to have a little more wall to make the kitchen seem bigger. OR we could just remove the doors from those cabinets - but the bases are so crappy I don't like that idea. What I would love to see is some sort of aging on the cabinets. They are pretty boring and since we can't afford new ones, I'd love to give them a cheap face lift with a little fancy paint. At first I though A crackle look, But that requires a ton of time and paint, and it was a bit busy. Then I thought good ol' distressing to give it that antiqued Provencial look - which is still a strong contender. But then I found this picture of an amazing kitchen, where they white washed the cabinets and it was the perfect combination of light bright cabinets with an old touch. I have to decide soon though because in less than two weeks we will actually be living there and will probably be wanting to use our kitchen! As you can see my design is all over the place. I Just can't decide, and am scared to commit! Once we are actually living there for more than a night and things start to get cleaned up, I'm hoping to have some more focus. Right now my brain is spinning a million different directions and I'm petrified of screwing up the most important house in the kitchen. Simple does not come easy to me. This Home's heart is about to have a triple bypass!

Two Kitchens I really freaking LOVE! Look at the DRAPER sign!!