Friday, July 15, 2011

If I...were coming up with yet another idea for my kitchen

I haven't really done anything with my kitchen.  Except for my new stove, it's basically exactly the same as the day I moved in.  I haven't even bothered taking a real set of pictures since it looks just like these from the MLS listing.  Except a heck of a lot more cluttered because, well, I have a lot of stuff.
Of course it's easy to dream about what I'd do if I were to gut the place, but what if I were just giving it a facelift?  Something I could do by myself (or with Shelly's help and/or with minimal help from a handyman/contractor type)?

Now, what I'd REALLY like to do is swap the long cabinet and the dishwasher so the latter will be by the window and out of the way when open.  Right now it blocks movement between the sink and the doorway and is super annoying.  Plus with this switch, then I'd have an even long expanse of counter right where I like to work.  But that's a bigger project, what with taking the cabinets all down and moving them around, moving the plumbing, blah blah blah. 

But I can live with the current layout if I could get rid of the orange cabinets and the depressing floor and the so-not-me counters.  And add a little more storage space.  Here's my latest design plan:

Centsational Girl recently redid her guest studio's cabinets with Rust-Oleum's Cabinet Transformations and they came out great.  She didn't even take the doors down!  Love that.  I decided to go with a more gray-based scheme because it just felt more me (even though I've been all about the brown in my living room).  So I picked Winter Fog and then I'll use their Counter Transfomations kit in Onyx to switch up my counters just as quickly.  I'll add this sideboard piece from Ikea (think I may buy it IRL!) and paint in the same Winter Fog.

I might be most excited about the floors.  My house was built in 1942 and linoleum was all the rage.  It went out of favor, but is coming back with Marmoleum!  I picked out a warm gray and then will add a black Greek key rectangle in the middle as a sort of rug.  Fun, right?  And linoleum is a green product and a lot softer on your feet than tile.  I also like the lack of grout lines (and thus cleaning grout lines).  'Course, I don't know how much it would cost, but let's worry about that later.

Currently, the space above my cabinets is chock full of stuff.  Platters, bowls, cupcake carrier.  I did reorganize my kitchen that one weekend, but it's still full of stuff.  All those bulky kitchen items that don't fit anywhere else.  In an ideal world, I'd put in new cabinets that go all the way up to the ceiling.  In this world, I'll get some nice baskets in different sizes to hide everything.  I also like the way the natural color and texture downplays the could-be-too-stark pink/black/gray color scheme.

I debated the color of the walls.  It'd be safer to go with another shade of blue or maybe yellow or maybe the same grass green as the powder room.  But in my heart, I want pink.  When I first moved in, I thought I'd do them in magenta, but now I'm thinking more honeysuckle.  It's such a bright and happy color.  Combining Rust-Oleum's and Behr's sites, i was able to do a mock-up of my kitchen.


Pretty, but perhaps a bit too bright?  What if I go to Deep Bloom, the next color down? And fill in the floor with gray and pop a few of the baskets up top?

sorry for the lack of photoshop skills

I kinda like it!

2 comments:

Alison at Wardrobe Oxygen said...

Oh i really like it too. And it's funny, those pics of your actual kitchen don't seem accurate because I feel it's already pink in there. It's supposed to be pink!

Debbie said...

Isn't it crazy that I have no color whatsoever in there? Well, except for the turquoise potholders hanging on the wall. But nothing purposeful.