Thursday, September 22, 2011

Kitchen Crashing

My friend, Diana, and her husband, Kent, are embarking on a huge remodel project and we all get to come along for the ride. And even more fun for me, yours truly has gotten a say in what things should look like. (No veto power though. Hmm. I should work on that. I jest!)

So, the project is THE KITCHEN. Huge undertaking. We are talking a whole new floor plan, demo-ing walls, new cabinets, floors, countertops, appliances, paint...
Here's some before action:

The dining room next to the kitchen.


One view of the kitchen.

And another.

Here is looking in from the formal dining room side, which is not really their formal dining room, but more of an office/mudroom space. You can see the walls don't even reach the vaulted ceiling anyway, so no problems changing them.

I need to snap a picture of the living room too because half that wall is coming down which affects the living room too.

Getting ahead of myself. Here's the new plan:
This is along the wall that currently houses the fridge, wall to the living room becomes 1/2 wall.
The fridge moves to the opposite side next to the sliding door.


The wall separating the living and dining rooms becomes a half wall. And the layout becomes two L's. The left side extends farther than the original kitchen into the formal dining room, complete with bar to sit at and eat or just annoy the cook.

They decided on their cabinet style 

and color and countertops, 

but then I was called in for color opinion (and now I just give my two cents on everything. :) )
"I like white," Diana boldly declared. She wanted to get away from her beige and red 
and brighten things up. The day of sorting through paint chips was hilarious. I vetoed white. I know I don't have veto power, but I did it anyway. It's hard to do white right and it actually doesn't always brighten things. We finally get down to gray and blue.

Personally, I avoid blue in the kitchen since it is an appetite suppressant, but to each her own. But then Diana tossed every blue chip out. (And kept picking beige. I had to remind her we were not doing beige anymore per her instructions.)

Strangely enough we settled on purple. I am uber excited about this possibility and after playing around with Sherwin Williams color picker online, Diana got some samples and put them up on the wall.


Some were a bit "mauve-ier" in person than online, so we decided against that. Not trying to bring back the '80s.


We settled on the kitchen and dining room accent wall being the lavender-gray color in the middle and the rest of the living room being the very light lavender/gray color on the left. I realize it doesn't look like much in the picture, but it's great in person. Just enough color. However, before I managed to post this, Diana picked another bit darker color for the living room and I haven't had a chance to go check it out yet.

Obviously, the paint is not of upmost importance since it will be awhile before they get to that stage in the adventure, but it's nice to know where things are headed.

Stay tuned for backsplash tile discussions, and demolition!

his post may be linked at the following parties (for their Blog Buttons see my Link Love page): (M) C.R.A.F.T., Amaze Me Monday, Sumo's Sweet Stuff,  (T) A Little Birdie Told Me  Stories of A to Z, The Blackberry Vine, How To's Day , Type A, Amaze Me August, , Show Me What Ya Got,  (W) Wow MeBlue Cricket Design, What I Whipped UpWicked Awesome Wednesday, Sweet Peas & Bumblebees (TH)   Creative Juice, Thrifty 101 , Smilemonsters , Everything But the Kitchen Sink, Shabby Chic Cottage, Thrifty Thursdays, House of Hepworth's,  (F) Fingerprints on the Fridge, Furniture Feature Friday,  Lovely Crafty Weekend , Remodelaholic, For the Kids Fridays, , Craft Goodies, (Sat) Tatertots and Jello , Anything Goes , Funky Junk Interiors (Sun) Creative Blog & Hop, Sundae Scoop, Under the Table and Dreaming



11 comments:

  1. You were too nice! Really she thinks I am a crazy person because I want no color in my house - I am afraid because I've thought my living room was too dark for 9 years now ... It's so stressful :) I do like my slightly darker gray though...

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  2. Ha, ha! I don't think you are crazy - funny, but not crazy. :) See, for you this is stressful, for me it's just fun.

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  3. Ha!...so glad I found you. I'm currently redoing my Kitchen and your choice of colors are VERY interesting to me. Going from dark, baddly stained oak cabinets that my hubby sanded down to??? I have light oak hardwood floors in all the rooms with the exception of a small Mudd/Den room just off the kitchen that has a greyblue with some cranberry slate. I haven't made any color choices yet. YIKES!

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  4. Well, I'm glad you found me too. :) I'll be documenting the whole process so hopefully that will be lots of inspiration for people.

    I like the sound of your floors. Are you going to restain the cabinets or paint? Sounds like it might be easier to paint? I adore darker colored base cabinets with lighter colored upper cabinets. Hint, hint. ;)

    My color advice is that most of us spend a lot time in the kitchen so go with something that is comfortable for you. Like I said, blue is an appetite suppressent, but that can work for some people who want to curb their appetite. Red stimulates the appetite and everything else is somewhere in between. My kitchen is green because it is very neutral to me. But I'm half tempted to copy what we are doing in Diana's kitchen! Loving it. More updates soon.

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  5. Ooooh! How exciting! That kitchen has so much potential!

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  6. If you're going to buy the whole lot, kitchen countertops and countertop, some kitchen cabinet retailers have software that will help you. If you want to do a solo test, some designers have software that they can easily do that for you.

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  7. Lol…I feel we are channeling each other’s way of thinking..I agree about the blue in a kitchen and would only consider it perhaps, in a lighter shade [grayish] because the mud/den rm. has those colors in the slate floor. I forgot to mention my kitchen sits kinda in the middle of the house meaning no walls with window (Oh, hubby did recently install a “skytube”) Red/Cherry is very possible. Feeling inspired! Btw: We are staining. Good luck to you and thanks! :)

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  8. Oh wow looks like you have a great plan. I would love to redo my kitchen. Thanks for sharing at Bacon Time.

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  9. I can't wait to see the finished product! Love the grayish color. I am a new follower from the Creative Bloggers' Hop. Vicky @ www.messforless.net

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  10. We are in the middle of redoing our dining room and settled on a medium lavender gray color. I thought it was just gray when I bought it, but it has a hint of lavender in it and it turned out BEAUTIFUL! I'm following now so I can see how it looks here :)

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