Storage

11.22.

House Tour: Kitchen and Butler’s Pantry

Do you remember on the MTV Cribs show where they would come to the Master Bedroom part of the tour…… and they always say, “And this is where all the magic happens!” insert: Gross puke face .

I always get grossed out at that part and if one of the people they are showing chooses not to say that part, I instantly like them much more.

Well, for me, I would have to say that about my Kitchen. Sorry, husband.

It’s true! I think my kitchen is by far the favorite spot in the house for me. Lets be honest ladies, we practically live there and have thought at one point or another about how hard it might be to incorporate some kind of sleeping area into the design.

Even though, with our house, we had to choose the same cabinets throughout the house, I was determined to inject character and texture into the space.

DSC_0319-2

I really love to cook and I have collected a fair amount of cookbooks over the years. This picture doesn’t actually truly reflect the amount of cookbooks I have. I am slowly going through our storage unit and haven’t brought them all into the house yet, but I really wanted a space that was solely for them.

I initially got the idea to add something like this when I became a fan of Last Man Standing starring Tim Allen. In the show, they have something like this on the end of their kitchen island that looks like it was built with the island to begin with.

Last Man Standing Island

I didn’t have the luxury of extending the island counter top over the cookbook unit, but I really like how it turned out in the end.

I called who else but my local go to craftsman, Steve Egloff from The Wandering Woodshop and together, we came up with the idea of using reclaimed wood. I told him what I wanted it used for and he designed the perfect piece. He actually surprised me with the finish by taking the same color we used on our accent wall in the living room (Benjamin Moore’s Labrador Blue) and watered it down to create the wash he used over the wood.

The end result was perfect!

Some areas of the unit come through bluer than others and it’s awesome!

DSC_0323-2

As you can see, the height is just a step down from the top of the counter top. Look at how pretty the knots of the wood come through! I heart reclaimed wood! Can you tell? 😉

Moving on to the barstools. Or should I say, counter stools? The reason I say this is because when looking for chairs, it’s important to know this. I literally almost made the mistake of ordering barstool height as opposed to the counter height stools. I was so used to just getting bar height in the past, that I never stopped to think about it.

Since we decided to go with the island top being all one level and not staggered, it made the height of the counters, well counter height. So, keep this in mind when shopping for stools. I purchased these from Target. I have been very happy so far. The only gripe is with 3 messy eating kids, I have to use the attachment of the vacuum that allows me to get small crumbs out of the nooks and crannies of the rattan instead of just wiping it off.

Love the texture it lends to the area.

I’ve posted about some of the hardware I chose to go with before in other parts of the house, but I decided to go with this again in the kitchen. I mixed and matched knobs so that nothing was too matchy matchy. I have been asked in the past how to make a space looked lived in and cozy from the start. I feel like this is one of the best secrets to doing this. Nothing should match to much. You should try to mix and match finishes, colors, textures that compliment each other. With the hardware I chose, the finishes match. However, the styles do not. It creates the same effect.

I went with a glass knob for the upper cabinets and a chrome look for lower cabinets, mixing circular knobs and squared off knobs.

I also used different sizes of the same bar style hardware pulls that I purchased from The Home Depot.

I didn’t realize that the fridge area would have a cabinet surround at first and I am happy that I decided to wait before purchasing the fridge for the space. It would have looked funny if we hadn’t purchased a counter depth fridge instead of a standard one. The standard one would have stuck out way too far and looked too large for the space. The counter depth was perfect!

We purchased ours from Home Depot and at first, I wanted a Frigidaire that had the bar bell handles like the hardware I chose for the cabinets and that stinkin fridge was almost $3000!!!!!!! Girlfriend, say WHAT????

I just figured I couldn’t get it until I was surfing the internet and found a Maytag version for significantly less, which sidebar: Aren’t they a Frigidaire company? Y’all ain’t fullin anyone! (See mom? Private school really DID pay off!)

Well, I ended up paying 1/2 that price for the one we got and it looks just like the one I originally saw! Yeahhh doggie! SCORE!

I probably should mention another thing. I meant to write a blog post about the kitchen WAY before it got close to decorating for Christmas. Oops!

This hopefully explains why you see a lot of red and perhaps a christmas tree or wreath. LOL! There will be much more to follow that in the coming days. I finally got my way this year and I get to change up the decor a little. For the longest time, we have had a Grinch Who Stole Christmas type of theme. I finally get to do my Rustic Cabin Christmas theme this year! Look for a tutorial on wall decor, coming soon.

Speaking of Rustic Christmas decor’. Have you seen Target’s dollar spot this year? They have a fantastic selection of christmas stuff this year. Especially if you are swaying towards the same type of theme that I am.

I picked these kitchen towels up there the other day for only $3. I love the plaid!

Another thing we did in the kitchen to give it some character was paint the vent hood. All the cabinets were the same color originally. A sort of off white/cream white. I asked Steve to add the two wood trim pieces that are coming down the center. He did that by simply gluing them in place. Then, we went back in and painted the hood the same color as the island. (*Benjamin Moore’s Fieldstone Gray)

I used the same color in my previous home on the bottom cabinets. Here is the blog post I wrote about painting the kitchen cabinets in that home.

Another way to add character and insert your own style is by changing out your light fixtures. We decided to go with the cheapest lighting package the builder offered because we knew we were going to change them out anyway over time. I bought these from Lowes and are from their Allen and Roth line. I had saw a pair of light fixtures that Joanna Gaines used in a home she did on Fixer Upper and I absolutely loved them……. until the cheapest pair I could find were over $200 each. Since we were having to do a lot of different projects to the house and I knew that buying two that price would eat up my budget, I decided to go with these instead. To be honest, they reminded me a lot of the ones I loved and I wasn’t the least bit sad that I chose to go with them.

They have a blown glass look and go perfect with the craftsman detail in the house.

I also wanted to share something with you that makes me smile every single day! I love this part of the house. You guessed it, the Butler’s pantry. I have always wanted one of these. I mean, like, ALWAYS!!!!!!!

Over the years, I have kept a running list of things I would want in my dream home and this was at the top of the list.

It is a small room off the kitchen that connects to the dining room. It’s the perfect spot to store things that you use frequently, but do not want to necessarily have out all the time. I keep our things like our coffee pot in here and my mixer.

There is a built in area for wine bottles. We store canned items above that and we keep things like wine glasses and coffee mugs in the center area.

I carried the look of the same hardware into this area too. I love these, if you can’t tell. 🙂

On the other wall of the Butler’s Pantry is the regular pantry (which I am going to go more into detail at a later date. You will see why. 🙂 )

Another thing on this wall is our magnet board.

Steve made this for me as well as a few more for the kids rooms.

I keep important reminders as well as school craft papers the kiddos bring home. I also keep a weekly calendar there as well and pretty much anything that might have ended up on the fridge, ends up here instead.

Back in the kitchen, another detail we added was the same type of wood work we used throughout the wall detail in the house. It is the simple squared off look that we used before. Afterwards, we went back and painted it the same color as the hood. (*Benjamin Moore’s Fieldstone Gray). I think it makes the island look more like a piece of furniture.

One more thing I wanted to mention is the counter tops. Since we went with a nation wide builder, we only had a few choices when it came to the granite. We decided to go with this color. The color is called Santa Cecelia. I must have Pinterest searched this color a million different ways so that I could see it with every possible color combo for the cabinets (etc.).

I am really happy with our choice.

Well folks, that’s all for today. I hope you enjoyed walking through my kitchen with me. I am so happy that you chose to spend a little time with me today. If you have any questions regarding any of the items you have seen in this post, please comment below and I will make sure to answer them.

Please make sure to check back regularly for more posts on our new home. It’s Christmas time, so I will be sharing decorating ideas and diy projects very soon!

XOXO,

Esther

Tags: Benjamin Moore, Butler's Pantry, Cookbooks, Craftsman Style, Fieldstone Gray, Granite, Hood, House Tour, Kitchen, Last Man Standing, Lowe's, Magnet Board, Painting Cabinets, Pendant Lighting, Reclaimed Wood, Santa Cecelia, Storage

03.28.

Fun Shared Girls Room (Reveal)

I have been literally obsessed with finishing the girls’ new room, and honestly it isn’t really finished yet. There are a few things to tweak here and there and paint. There are also a few DIY projects that still need to be done, but don’t worry! I will definitely share them once they have been completed.

The girls’ new room is our old bonus/playroom that never got played in! Doesn’t that irritate you? Well, it DID irritate me! LOL!

What to do?

Answer: MOVE THE GIRLS UP THERE!

I need to back track a little though and let you know why I decided to move the girls upstairs. First, like I said, the room never got used even though we had tons of toys to play with up there. Our home’s lay out is to where the downstairs is our main living space and everything upstairs was considered (for us) bonus. One big bonus room, a bathroom, and another bedroom.

The girls shared one of the downstairs bedrooms and a king bed and were still fighting ALLLLLLLL the time! “She touched me! She looked at me! She FARTED on me! ” You know, the usual stuff.

Then, one day, I just looked at my husband with those ” I have an idea” looks. After I chased him down into the other room and made him listen to me, I told him I thought we should move the girls to the bonus room and maybe their own space would make things better.

So far, so good! I am really happy with how it turned out. A friend of mine said that it reminded her of a cool dorm room.

I knew that if I wanted to make this happen, it was going to have to be on a tight budget. Other than the beds, I didn’t want to have to spend much. I kind of had no way around purchasing the beds. I did, however, go to Walmart to buy the twin beds/box springs which I felt would be the cheapest alternative.(*around $300/each bed) The metal frames were universal ones that I picked up at Sam’s Club. ($38 each)

The hilarious thing is that they are happier with smaller beds. They went from sharing a King, down to a twin bed. I think something can definitely be said though for having your own space……. and not being farted on….. right? Sorry!

I wanted to visually divide the room to allow them to have their “own sides”. I already had these toy shelves in the room and decided to arrange them in a way that they both could have their own things stored on each side. It is basically 4 of the units that I picked up at Walmart for $17 each with fabric containers picked up at Target a while back.

This is one of the projects that still needs tweaking. My idea is to attach them with screws and put molding around the creases with maybe a top to match their desk tops. This way, the piece will look more like one piece, instead of 4.

Next off, the DESKS! I am extremely proud of these desks and I’ll tell you why. They cost me a total of $ 4 . 00 !!!! No, that wasn’t a typo!

Let me explain:

I actually took an old dining table that I had on my back porch (that I wanted to move) and cut it down (since it was a pub table), along with the chairs and attached it to the wall to make their desks. The only thing I had to pay for were the roller casters on the back legs, which I scored at Ollies for $ 4.00.

I had looked and looked on Pinterest for all sorts of ideas. I found some great ones, but they all were going to cost around $300 to $400 to complete, which definitely would have had to wait a while. *Remember the tight budget?

If you look closely, you can see that one end looks like it is coming out of the wall and only has 2 legs.

That is because of this:

I thought I was going to have to buy wood from the store to do this, but instead, we were able to reuse pieces from the original table! SCORE!

To let the girls personalize their own space, I generously gave up a few of my bulletin boards from my office I bought at Homegoods a while back.

This is my youngest daughter’s side.

This is her older sister’s side. I think you can guess which one has “HOARDING” tendencies……. LOL!

Here is a view of the chairs. When we initially cut them down, we didn’t allow for the fact that they all naturally leaned back, so we added the roller casters to the back to level it off. We didn’t want to have to cut two more of the four chairs that were left, in case I come up with more projects…… for my husband to do……. 😉 * He would have preferred to cut them all up and use them for a bonfire, I’m sure. Love you honey!

By now, you have probably noticed in a previous photo that the girls have LOCKERS in their room! This is all because of their cool daddy! While doing a painting project for the local Sheraton hotel in our city, they were getting rid of them!!!!!! There were 6 in total!!!! So, you know what that means…………. they were FREEEEEEE , aside from the paint that we purchased to paint them. They were originally a stale tan color like most lockers are.

You may not be able to tell so well in the pic, but the one in the picture above is a light blue since that is my youngest daughter’s favorite color.

The one in the previous photo further above is a light purple for, you guessed it, our oldest’s favorite color.

The girls and I did a really cool Pinterest DIY project for them. I bought one sheet of mosaic tile backsplash. Then, we pulled individual tiles off and attached peel n stick magnets to them.

Now, the girls can stick things on the lockers since they are magnetic! Lots of fun! They love it!

I love how they are able to express their own style and keep it on their own sides of the room.

There are so many things I love about this room, but one of my favorite things are their headboards.

I was really nervous that what I had envisioned would not come out right, but I am SOOOO happy with it!

Again, I had looked and looked on Pinterest for all kinds of ideas. I found so many great ideas. However, they all involved using a thick plywood for the base, which would have been fine, except I was determined to not have to ask for my husband’s help on this one. He was projected out by this time and I was wanting to do this one on my own.

I would have had to have him cut it and that just wasn’t going to work for me.

I decided instead to buy a very large canvas at AC Moore, which was on sale and went from there. Mom and Dad were visiting the weekend I decided to do it, so I sweet talked Mom into helping me. She was a trooper! I asked her because while I might have wanted to go it alone, it is definitely easier when you have two people tugging and stapling. Thanks MOM!

I will be posting a DIY post on it later.

The one above is my youngest’s. The stripes were actually a result of things not going exactly like I had planned, but then again, they say that some of the best things come from that and I think this turned out better because of it. It also allowed their headboards to be slightly different.

Here is a closer view of it.

Here is a close view of my oldest’s. I kept hers plain without stripes so that she could have, what I considered an older look. By the way, that is a painter’s drop cloth that is on the headboard. 😉 More on that in the DIY post.

AND this is the BEAST that I will be taking on next. The plan is to paint it a dark gray and add a long mirror above it. For this, I will definitely be needing my “painter husband” ‘s help. Once it is done, I will add a tutorial! *Maybe my first video tutorial? What do you think? 😉

Well, there you have it. This is the girl’s room ……… for now.

Anytime I add anything, I will make sure to let you know!

Until next time……