hi, hello!

happy monday to you. it has been a crazy couple of weeks! good news, though: we are officially in the dry with our house!

on my last post, i promised some of my kitchen ideas – so i’m here to deliver.

if you’ve followed my instastories at all, you’ve seen the layout of the house. the kitchen, dining, and living room are all open to each other. when we were designing the house, it was really important to us to have a flow when it came to kitchen, living, and dining. those three areas are the main areas that people congregate (at least in our families) and so we wanted them all to feel connected. so – we got rid of the walls and opened it all up! in an effort to make even more use of our space, we added a big glass french door that opens out onto our deck where we’ll have another large dining table.

i don’t feel like i have any specific style. i’m not farm housey or modern or industrial…i’m just, well, me. and, with that being said, i CAN tell you what i’m drawn to and what we, ultimately, decided to go with for one of our favorite rooms of this house.

in my first post about our house, i mentioned that we worked really hard to perfect the design. in fact, we once had an entirely different floor plan! in the first plan, our kitchen was in the center of the home. i really loved the layout, but it just felt a little off. when we decided to, essentially, start over with the guts of the house, we moved the kitchen over to the back side of the house; and that’s when i got the prettiest window! with all the natural light coming into the house, i wanted to keep things light and airy, but cozy and lived-in at the same time. i like neutrals but i find ways to add little quirks here and there.

we worked with a designer to get the bones of the kitchen just right. she did an amazing job! our kitchen is a little tricky because we do have 11-foot ceilings in the main part of the house and i really wanted cabinetry all the way to the ceiling. i know some of you are thinking that i’ll never use it and it’s a waste of money. in my mind, by pulling the cabinets down from the ceiling – with the way it all lays out – i thought that it would really ‘shrink’ the ceiling down and make it look not as open. call me crazy, but (insert girl shrugging emoji) it’s my kitchen. 😉

the kitchen is pretty much a u-shape. my dishwasher and sink are along the back side of the house; my stove/oven are along the bottom part of the ‘u’; then there is a break for my pantry door; and the fridge is on the other arm of the ‘u’. there will be a 6×6 island in the middle with some additional seating. just to give you a general idea.

we decided to go with the ge cafe appliances in matte white. andrew LOVED them and really liked the brass hardware. our cabinets will be custom made by a local amish cabinetry business. he is incredible and their work is amazing! we decided to stay away from white cabinetry since our appliances are white – so we will be going with a warm greyish green tone…similar to the cabinet tones below.

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because our main area is so open, i am trying to make the design concepts all similar. for instance, using black as my ‘accent’ color. i know that sounds weird, but with the tone of the cabinets and the brass on the appliances, it was an easy choice to use. so i’ll have two pendant lights over the island (black with brass/gold), a black apron sink with a brass faucet, black dining room chairs, and then our living room furniture will be dark charcoal grey. the brass/gold hardware will bring out a warmer feel with the cabinet color and contrast with the white countertops nicely.

i am adding three open shelves on the left side of my window. these shelves, along with the pantry pocket-door, island, and the shelves inside of the glass cabinets, will all be stained to match each other.

making decisions for a new house is no joke! but seeing ideas and concepts starting to take shape is so fun!

all of the ideas above (apart from the appliances) are snips from pinterest. how did anyone build a house before pinterest!?

i am so excited to make the best memories with my babies in this kitchen! i can already smell the chocolate chip cookies baking…

xx