New House Kitchen Reveal

When we bought our house back in March, it had a couple of major things we knew we'd want to renovate. You can see our bathroom progress in this post, but today I'm showing you our kitchen! I knew I wanted the cabinets to be white, so we picked the same white as our trim color so it would all blend seamlessly. This is the only project we hired out, as I wanted it to look REALLY good and didn't feel confident we could do a good job ourselves. The painter did a great job and it drastically changed the look of our kitchen. I love it so much more now! 
I don't love the countertop (cement with a shiny seal on it...had they left off the seal I probably would like it a lot more) and I don't love that the backsplash was grouted in dark grout (I would have done white or a light greige, but it's not worth it to change at this point...), but sometimes we have to make financial decisions instead of design decisions. Ha! I know we won't be here for more than a couple of years and neither of these things are really offensive, so they'll stay! Painting the cabinets made a huge difference I think everyone will really like.
The other thing we did was take out some of the open shelving on the left side of the kitchen sink and replace it with upper cabinets. There were just SO many open shelves (not my style to begin with, but again! Can't change it all), I didn't know where I'd put my bowls and plates. We added two cabinets there and it makes a huge difference in storage and I like how it looks much, much better. What do you think?!
BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE: (try to ignore the weird bulkhead above the cabinets...we're not sure why it's there, but aren't planning to do anything about it since this isn't our "forever home")

AFTER: (even the bulkhead is a little less noticeable now)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

If I had it my way, I wouldn't have open shelving because I'm just not a huge fan of it. It seems so cluttered to me, but I tried to decorate them pretty simply.

 water mister / recipe box

Adding pulls or knobs to your cabinets is one way to really make a big difference in your kitchen. Even if you can't paint the cabinets, adding hardware is both practical and makes it look much more elevated. I love our pulls from Rejuvenation. I decided on all pulls because they are easier to handle usually! This is the ORB finish.

Another huge update is our lighting in the kitchen. We got this one from Hudson Valley Lighting and are so happy with it. The house was built in the 60's so it has some vintage touches to it, which I wanted to bring out. This milk glass light is so charming-- I'm so happy with it! We put it in the front and back entry of the house, too. If you scroll up you can see the original light which was much too small for the kitchen. The color of the base ties right in with the color of our dining chandelier and our hardware on the cabinets.

I can't wait to show you all of our lighting which we partnered with Hudson Valley Lighting for. It's amazing what it does for the house!

Kitchen rug 

What do you think of the updates?! Thanks for following along with our house reno projects here!! It means so much to me that you keep up with my life and want to see the updates to our first house!
xoxo

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Flowers for Your Home: August

Hi friends! I took a blog and instagram break last week and it was really lovely. I didn't sign on to the Instagram app even once (so if you messaged me, I'll reply shortly!) and it was a needed refresher. I also learned a couple things about myself in regards to the app. Maybe I'll share soon.

I'm so excited to be back today with my favorite series-- Flowers for Your Home. This is where I show you how I take grocery store flowers and make a beautiful arrangement for your house. It's no secret I love flowers! I think they really brighten up our home and provide me with some joy as I work or as we eat dinner at the table. 

It was really fun to create this arrangement along with a couple small hydrangeas from our front yard. I love that I can do this now that they're blooming! I also got the following from Trader Joe's:

- White Roses

- Flowering Stock (smells amazing!)

- Lavender Scabiosa 

*Altogether this cost about $15 and I got 4 arrangements out of it.

I started by putting two hydrangea stems in on opposite sides to create some height and structure at the base of the vase (criss-crossing the stems makes for a nice base to then wedge in other stems and keep them in place).

Something I learned from my grandma is that anything with stems that are wood-like, like hydrangeas, can have their stem split at the end a little so that it lets up more water. Hydrangeas are one of the most thirsty plants!

Next, I added in 3 tall sprigs of stock near the hydrangeas. The stock acted as my greenery for this bouquet, which is normally what I start with to help create a base.

Next up were the roses. I learned from lots of florist friends that it's appealing to create levels in your arrangements. So rather than all the roses being cut at one length, vary the length making some flowers sit deeper into the bouquet and some poking out at a longer length. This offers dimension. You can see I sat one really low in the arrangement there in the middle! 

Tip: blow on your roses before adding them to your arrangement to get them to open their petals a bit. It makes them take up more surface space!

Lastly, I added the scabiosa (such a funny name for a flower that is so pretty! ha!). I just let two of these poke up a little higher than the rest and nuzzled the third down into the arrangement. Our eyes always sees things best and most pleasing in odd numbers, so 3 is a great number!

I ended up having so many flowers, I made four arrangements. Two were really petite, but I love setting budvases in the bathroom and by the kitchen sink! Flowering stock is a great flower to get the biggest bang for your buck. Even though the bouquet comes with maybe 5-6 stems, they have tons of "breaks" where you can clip them off, giving you more like 20 stems. I had stock EVERYWHERE in our house- ha! It smells amazing.

Here's how they all turned out:

I hope this inspires you to pick up some grocery store flowers and try your hand at arranging! Practicing the art of arranging flowers never gets old to me :) Happy Monday! interior design website / services / portfolio

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Friday Finds: Target Favorites

On Monday I went to Target for one thing: Brita Filters. I left with wayyy more than that ;) I know I'm not the only one this happens to in Target!
Universal Thread brand had so many cute clothes, probably because it's back to school time! I wanted to show you some of my favorites. I shared these on my Insta Stories this week, so sorry if you're seeing them again, but because those go away after 24 hours I figured it wouldn't hurt. 
This blush tee is super soft (from my favorite brand-- a new day). It's longer in the back than the front and has a cute seem down the back. It'll be easy to dress down (jean shorts) and fun to style up (pair with white denim and wedges with a long necklace). And for $9, it was a no brainer! Wearing an XS.

LOVED this stripe tee and it's $5! It would go with everything from shorts to jeans and work out pants ;) And these chambray shorts are so cute. Elastic waist band, yes please!

I tried this wrap dress and really liked everything about it, except the color on me. But a reader on Instagram stories told me I probably didn't like it because I wasn't used to it, but that it is a nice color on me. I would have to get used to it! They have it in blush and cream, too, just not in the store.

This striped jumpsuit was adorable and I would have gotten it if it fit just a bit better. I'm in an XS and it fit everywhere except the chest area was too big. I'm a B cup for reference.

For $35, these overalls were darling!! Paired with a stripe tee, they're perfect for fall.

This was my favorite little sundress I tried on. It's little navy and white flowers and it's a midi length.

I also adored this cardigan in both these colors!

The other thing I got and absolutely love so far is a new Tenoverten nail polish! They are 8-free which means they don't have 8 of the more harmful ingredients traditional polishes have. I love that! I got the color Mott and painted my nails Monday and they're still totally perfect today (writing this Thursday night!) 

I found some really fun decor pieces at Target, too! Take a peek below:

WEEKEND SALES: Loft: 40% off full price styles with code FUNFUNFUN Madewell: up to 70% off summer picks. Also, I found the perfect dress!!

J.Crew: up to 50% off fall styles. This top is to die for!

Draper James: sale styles are so cute!

Anthropologie: 25% extra off sale I hope you have an awesome weekend! I'll be taking next week off blogging and instagram just as a way to refresh and relax, free of social media. I'll be back the following week :)
xoxo interior design website / services / portfolio

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