We started our kitchen renovation back in October, and it’s just a few details from being totally finished.  We couldn’t be more excited to be back in one of our favorite rooms in our home.  I love to cook, and my husband loves to eat.  Plus we both love entertaining and having friends over, and it’s always the kitchen where people tend to gather and hang out at most of our parties.  Since we were gutting our kitchen all the way down to the studs we essentially had a blank palette to work with.  I came across this amazing Brooklyn brownstone in one of my favorite books DECORATE.  The pictures of the kitchen were a major inspiration point that I referred back to throughout the process.

kitchen_renovation_inspiration_point

There are so many things I love about this space.  The open shelving made from re-claimed wood, the vintage high back farmhouse sink, the striped fabric.  All the white, and the grey countertops.  Plus the mini dog on the counter was just the icing on the cake.  Unfortunately we don’t have 20 foot ceilings in our kitchen, but I decided to translate this inspiration into my own space, with a few tweaks to make it fit our 100 year old house.  Here’s my inspiration board:

kitchen remodel inspiration

  • Fiberglass Shell Chairs:  Although my budget definitely couldn’t handle a real set of Eames shell chairs for our breakfast nook ($300 each) I was lucky enough to score two vintage knock-offs for free.  Yes that’s right people, FREE, and nothing beats that price!  I love their simple and modern shape, and thought they wouldn’t distract from the rest of the details in the space.  
  • Black Walls:  When I first mentioned to people that I was planning to paint our walls black, I can’t tell you how many of them first reacted with “No you’re not!”  I chose the black for two reasons.  One, we have a lot of wood in the kitchen, the open shelves, and an original sideboard.  Wood, for me at least, creates a challenge when choosing color.  I didn’t want to go neutral, or green, but wanted to keep things graphic and modern.  White seemed unpractical for a breakfast nook (I was thinking of our future children throwing food around), so I started searching and fell in love with black.  Also, the second reason is we have a lot of red accessories, such as our Kitchen Aid mixer, canisters, containers, etc.  I didn’t want to abandon the red, so again the black seemed like a great choice.  Everyone knows black, red, and white go great together!
  • Rifle Paper Botanical Notebooks:  What do a bunch of notebooks have to do with a kitchen?  I love, love, love the design and color on these notebooks, and they were a major inspiration point for deciding what hues to coordinate with the red and black.  I think the peach tones add a bit of softness, and the teal blue is a perfect counterpoint to the red.
  • White subway tile:  I’m kind of obsessed with white subway tile.  Our whole bathroom in the basement is covered in it.  Our house is 100 years old this year, and I wanted to honor it’s age in as many ways as possible (we used lots of old style fixtures, lights, etc), but with a modern twist.  I thought the subway tile would be a perfect way to accomplish this.  It’s traditional, but tiling it up to the ceiling lends a bit of a modern touch, and creates a lovely backdrop for our open shelves.
  • Julia Child print:  This print, by Unraveled Designs, was the very first thing I purchased for our kitchen, before our project was even underway.  It also, along with the Rifle notebooks, helped inspire the colors for the space.  I LOVE to eat, so the words by the famous Julia Child struck a cord with me.  I also liked the graphic-ness of the black and white elements on the white background that really makes the words pop.  I can’t wait to hang it up!

 

Thank you so much checking out my kitchen inspiration.  I am going to post a tour next week, so stay tuned for the finished product!

Signature copy