• Blog,  Breakfast,  Kitchen

    My New Breakfast Bar

    I’m kind of a late bloomer when it comes to figuring certain things out. While many people are just naturally organized and good at routines and structure, I am more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl, so it’s always pretty great when I find solutions to make my day run smoother. If your family is like ours, there is no time more hectic than the time before school begins each day. That’s why, even though the school year is nearly over, I’m so excited to share this idea with you. Lately, I have been obsessed with creating a cute coffee station in my house. In my quest for more ideas,…

  • Kitchen,  Lunch

    Designated Lunch Cupboard

    I’m always thinking of better ways to make our school routines run smoother. With back to school just around the corner I thought I’d share what we are doing to make the task of packing school lunches more stream-line. Way back when we were planning out our kitchen cabinets, I was very specific about what kinds of things we needed to store. I made lists of the items I knew were used together and grouped them into stations. My kitchen has a smoothie station, a baking station a dishes station, a homework station, a cleaning station and a lunch station. For the most part, the lunch station really encourages them…

  • Kitchen

    French Country Kitchen: Color Palette Inspiration

     I really LOVE how this all turned out. The colors are so calming to me and the light cabinets really brighten up the kitchen. We decided to leave the trim dark because it really captures the character of our Tudor-style home. We also carried the dark colors throughout the kitchen by choosing antique bronze finishes for the light fixtures, hardware and faucets. The light and dark contrast really brings everything together. So happy!  

  • Remodeled Kitchen
    Before and After,  Home Tour,  Kitchen,  Remodel

    Kitchen Remodel Before and After

    Our kitchen remodel was not the typical situation where a construction team was hired and the job was completed in a few months. We took our sweet time, about 18 months to be exact. The majority of the time was spent researching ideas and troubleshooting ways to make our ideas come to fruition. We hit several road blocks along the way, but we were very determined to try every avenue needed to make it work. Our adventure began when we discovered our dishwasher was broken sometime in March of 2012. After pulling the dishwasher out, we learned it had been leaking behind the cabinets and under the floor, clear into…

  • design details from our kitchen make over
    Before and After,  DIY Tutorials,  Kitchen,  Money Saving Tips,  Remodel

    Adding Decorative Details Without Breaking the Bank

    For years (maybe even decades) I have drooled over kitchen magazines. The designs that really made my heart sing were were the ones that featured lots and lots of finishing details. I love classical Roman architecture, so anything with pillars, corbels, detailed molding and carved trims make me very happy. I’m the opposite of a minimalist. I like details and lots of them…but guess what? Details are really expensive, especially in the kitchen. For instance, the corbels offered by the company that made our cabinets were going to cost $300…each. Well, you can’t have just one corbel holding up a counter, so we were looking at $600 just for one…