Thursday, May 13, 2010

Kitchen Envy


After much deliberation (read: we hate moving) we have decided to stay in our apartment for a few more years. The rent is reasonable, the neighborhood is great, and the space is versatile enough to never get boring. Plus, we have nice landlords who are allow us to paint the walls.

With that being said, as I mentioned in my previous post, we have decided to make some updates to the place. The idea behind the updates is to make our apartment our "home," a comfortable place that doesn't feel like a temporary fix. Step#1: Repaint the walls. We have lovely 14 foot ceilings, with the original tin roof (our place used to be a candy store). The white walls and white ceiling were aged, and blended together to create a very vague space. We decided to paint the walls a nice slate grey, something very clean and subtle, but enough to distinguish the ceiling from the walls, and cover some marks and dings from tenants past. We painted everything except the bathroom (which is a whole other blog post) and the upstairs loft portion, which is our bedroom. We left that a dark navy blue. That too is another blog post.

With everything painted, we installed a new light fixture in the kitchen. It is three small bronze halogen spotlights. The light is so much more subtle and soft, and the new fixture makes our place look less...how should i say it...rental? We (thank you Dan T.) installed a dimmer switch for the light and voila! Ambient lighting!

Last night, the final portion of phase 1 was completed: THE SHELVES. The unfortunate thing about our apartment is that is has no cabinets, whatsoever. For the past year, all of our dishes and canned have resided in a large dresser that served as our pantry. Long story short, Jim installed 4 shelves in place of the dresser last night, and they are my new favorite thing in the apartment. The task of getting attaractive jars for food and organizing our goods will take a couple days, but I am so happy with how they turned out. Pictures to come.

The issue that remains with the kitchen still, however, is space. I want to have a KITCHEN, not a stove area. We both enjoy cooking, and I want to make everything accessible. So the shelves are only the beginning. I am using the pictures below as inspiration for organizing the shelves, where to put my spices, and how to make my kitchen both functional and fabulous.



I love how they incorporated art into these kitchen shelves.

I am normally opposed to exposing pots and pans but I like how uncluttered and organized this looks, despite there being a lot going on.




Gorgeous wallpaper. This photo is from Domino (RIP), and the apartment is only about 450 square feet.

Our stove is the same size as this. I love the butchers block cutting board, tulips, and clean lines.

1 comment:

  1. Great post! I can't wait to see the house. I bet it amazing, your so good at piecing things together in such a lovely artistic way. Post pictures!

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