It occurred to me recently that although I extensively documented the construction of our house, I’ve haven’t shown you many photos of the finished product! I’ve given little glimpses here and there, little snippets, but I’ve avoided a full-on home tour for a few reasons. A) When we moved in, there were still lots of loose ends that needed to be tied up. It took weeks–months in some cases–for the house to actually be finished. B) We had a baby exactly two weeks after moving in, then jumped right into the Holidays. C) We moved in right at the beginning of Winter, the darkest part of the year, and there just hasn’t been enough light for good photos. But I think the time has finally come for an honest-to-goodness tour, starting with my favorite room in the house, the kitchen! Here are some of the fun details we put into the kitchen…
Overall, I love our new house. But yes, there are a few minor things (and even fewer not so minor things) that I would change if we were doing this again. But one thing I’m completely in love with and would never change is the open shelving in the kitchen. We’ve always had plain white everyday dishes, and they’ve always been hidden in a cupboard. When we were designing the kitchen, we knew we wanted open shelves so we could display all of that dinnerware, and we’ve found that in addition to being easy on the eyes, open shelving is super functional. The dishwasher sits just under the set of shelves pictured above, and it makes unloading the dishwasher a breeze. I know that sounds like a small time-saver, but every single time I put dishes away, I’m grateful for those shelves!
We’re lucky to have a barnwood salvage warehouse an hour’s drive from us, so one Saturday, we drove up and spent a few hours looking through piles and piles and piles of old barnwood. It was surprisingly challenging to get enough length for our six shelves and make sure all of the boards were the same depth and thickness, but we found some really pretty boards with nice wear patterns and pretty shading. The oil-rubbed bronze brackets were another stroke of luck. After months of searching for attractive, inexpensive brackets that could hold some serious weight, we finally found exactly what we were looking for–at the Home Depot just a few miles from our house!
We love the farmhouse sink in the corner of the kitchen, and really like the goose neck faucet that goes with it. In fact, we liked it enough to buy the exact same fixture for the prep sink in the island. Oil-rubbed bronze finishes can vary a lot from company to company, and it took some searching to find fixtures like this with exactly the finish we wanted.
We knew right from the start of construction–actually, it was one of the first things we decided on before construction even began–that we wanted to have white subway tile in the kitchen. We chose to go from the countertops all the way to the ceiling with the backsplash, and really love the clean, old-fashioned look it has. We also decided to use grey grout for two equally important reasons: it makes the tile really pop, and it hides dirt. The grout happens to match our countertops perfectly. All of the counters on the perimeter of the kitchen are made of a really affordable granite called Norwegian White. I was originally against using granite because I didn’t want high-gloss counters, but our fabricator gave them a beautiful, soft, leathered finish, and they are absolutely perfect. They are just gorgeous.
As much as we love our open shelving, we knew we would need a few cabinets for storage as well. One lucky cabinet, filled with pretty white and clear glass dishes, has glass panes on the front. The texture of the glass is called “Baroque,” and it is swirly and melty and rustic-looking. The cabinet is actually much better looking than any of the dishes inside! And all of the cabinets have pretty, hammered knobs and pulls in our favorite oil-rubbed bronze finish.
Be sure to tune in to my next post for Style Spotters in a few weeks, when I’ll be sharing pictures of the whole kitchen and how all of these fun details work together to create a beautiful room that the whole family likes to hangout in.
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