Remaking Home | Blog Post 3 / 5

Ok, so when I posted Remaking Home | Living Room I said that was where I started.  Well, truth is, I actually started with the kitchen but all I really did in this remodel was reorganize this room, no painting required.  I promise I didn’t mean to fib 🙂

The kitchen was the only room I successfully chose the paint palette for the first time around.  Red for a kitchen to me is fitting because it is a place with fire.  Red to me speaks of cooking and baking and enjoying the occasionally spicy meal.  I couldn’t do any red though because if you look at the counters they are yellow and the cabinets are a very yellow-brown.  And I’m not a fan of putting catsup and mustard in a room.  We also wanted to incorporate lime green in our kitchen.  After looking and bunches of colors I found this Sierra Red and fell in love.  I love the earthy, dirt red tone.

Our other hurdle with this room was that is was an awkwardly HUGE kitchen.  We have very little counter space and only one place for the stove, refrigerator and radiator (yes, I did try to move the stove and fridge).  To break up the space, and wall space, we added a small “dining” table and another table for some more counter space.  We hung the lime green lantern over our new “counter” space and strung lights around the doorways for some nice ambiance.  My favorite addition we made in this room are the pots and pans racks by the stove and the cubbies for jars of baking supplies.  The last little touches were the pictures we hung and the curtain I got for the window leading to the porch (I get the most compliments on this curtain than anything else in the house I think).

Our bathroom is TINY.  There is room for the toilet, sink, radiator, and tub… there’s enough left over to stand in the room and turn around.

When Josh and I got engaged we made our trip to Target to create our wedding registry.  I look back fondly on this time now but that day he and I had it out.  We could not agree on anything and particularly could not agree on towels.  He wanted all these boring colors and I really wanted the bright colors (particularly yellow of course).  We ended up getting so frustrated at each other that we actually went separate ways, wandering the store by ourselves for a while.  Josh had the scanner so he took the liberty to add a few things in my absence (like an ax, which we actually got for a wedding gift) 😉  Eventually we had cooled down enough to talk again and Josh won the  towel battle.  The first two years of our marriage were privy to brown, navy, purple, and green  towels.  This year I found these way more exciting towels at World Market and was STOKED!  I showed Josh and he liked them too so I bought them while they were on sale and with a coupon and put the old ones in storage for when we have more than four people in our home at a time.  Josh has since learned that yellow is, indeed, an awesome color and that color in general is way more fun.  I have learned that too much color variety, or rainbows in every room, just looks immature.  One of the many, although seemingly insignificant, lessons learned because of marriage.  Love that guy!

So I love my towels.  It’s the little things in life right?  But my other favorite part of the bathroom is my soap dispenser.  Josh got this soap dispenser for me for my birthday, just before the redesign project took flight.  The other thing, besides yellow towels, that I had been asking Josh for was a fun soap dispenser.  I have always loved the kids soap dispensers and every time we went to Target I would make him look at them with me and I would say “some day I would really love one of these.”  One such trip at Target we found my little elephant.  This was finally a soap dispenser that was buckets of fun for me but not too obnoxious that Josh didn’t like it.  So, lo and behold, one of the gifts I opened on my birthday was that soap dispenser and I WAS THRILLED!  Such a thoughtful gift.

As for the rest of the room, fortunately green was already part of our bathroom scheme before so the rug, the toilet basket, the toiletry shelving, and some of the paint job could stay.  When we first painted the bathroom we naively chose a neon green.  It was hideous.  So then we repainted two walls a more subdued green, but I still wasn’t happy, I wanted the room to be uniform so, for this project, I simply painted the other two walls that same, subdued, green color.

With the new towels we DID need a new shower curtain though.  I browsed for a while.  Since the bathroom is so small and the only window is behind the tub I wanted curtains that would allow the light to pass through them.  I finally found this cool, map curtain at Urban Outfitters.

The last piece I added to the space was a simple shelf.  Previously we had a couple hooks for the hand towels there but I wanted a little shelf to put a candle.  The candle was important to me because I would light it every time I had a client meeting or session at the studio so if they had to use the restroom it would have nice ambiance and, most importantly, it would smell nice.  So I found this shelf on Etsy and was exciting to have my candle shelf and towel hooks all in one, with the lovely addition of a jar for fake flowers.

Ok, the final last piece I added was a new toilet seat.  The old one was the white plastic variety so we picked up this more aesthetically pleasing wooden seat at IKEA.

And now, the visual evidence… 🙂

Wall Colors…

Kitchen Red:  Sierra Redwood (Sherwin Williams)

Kitchen Tan:  no clue

Bathroom Green:  Parakeet (Sherwin Williams)

The Stuff…

KITCHEN

Pots and Pans racks:  IKEA

Wood cubbies:  IKEA

Yellow table:   IKEA

Curtain:  World Market

Trash Can:   IKEA

BATHROOM

Rug:  Target

Toilet Basket:  Target

Beside sink shelves:  Target

Yellow shelf:  Etsy

Towels:  World Market (not the exact same as they discontinued them in December but these are similar)

Soap dispenser:  Target

Shower Curtain:  Urban Outfitters

Toilet Seat:   IKEA

Trash Can:  Target