I am a huge procrastinator when it comes to posting finished spaces. Maybe it’s because I have a lot of self doubt. I find it hard to post my work because I look at all the other spaces and talent out there, and think, “Who would anyone ever want to see what little old me did?” And then there are the excuses like “But I don’t have carrara marble countertops, and barn wood flooring in this house.”

Guess what, not everyone is filthy rich and able to have the house of their dreams automatically. And when it comes down to what matters, I have a beautiful family, an amazing husband, and love my life. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Heck, my husband and I started off living in a cabin… without a bathroom… yeah, I did not just say that, did I? Lol. SO I am grateful for what we have now, and you know what? We didn’t spend a fortune doing it.

Comparison is the thief of joy. This is MY home, the little fingerprints on the windows are from MY kids, and this is MY life. We have created a life that we love, and that’s all that matters in the end.

With all that said, I am sure I will make many more changes to my home, as our house is a living remodel, but here is our kitchen up to date.

So here is a little reminder of what the ugly before was… Honey golden builder-grade blah. Don’t worry, there is a light at the end of the tunnel:

Ta-Da!

Since we decided to keep our galley kitchen wall closed in (we won’t be living here forever, so we want to make sure the new buyers have enough storage in this tiny house) we decided to do a gorgeous backsplash of subway tile. I had to convince my husband on subway with a medium dark grout, but I will tell you, every time I look at that backsplash, I fall in love all over again.

I painted a wall in my house a color other than white. Shocker, right? I made a DIY chalkboard wall, but I didn’t want it to be a harsh black, so this muted grey was the perfect compromise. Light enough to look airy, and dark enough to show chalk and character. I am LOVING it!

We have a pretty small breakfast area, and we found ourselves never using it (we are living room dinner people… so embarrassing, lol) so we decided to make the breakfast area more of an extension of our kitchen.

We kept the counters the same, since they were already pretty neutral.

The one thing I didn’t like about the fridge was this big black siding that it has. We actually started building an enclosure for it, but it blocked out too much light in the rest of the kitchen and just looked weird, so we built a little side shelf for dishes. The original plan was for it to work as a potato bin, but that didn’t work because the window made the potatoes go bad really fast. Lesson learned.

This is the view from the little see through window between our living room, and kitchen wall.

I love how this barn door is the first thing I see when I come into the house. Makes it feel like home. We actually have a tutorial on how we built it HERE.

We went with a pure white semi gloss paint for the kitchen cabinets. It was supposed to be oil paint, but they gave us latex instead. I made sure to clean and sand the heck out of them, before painting, as I didn’t want the paint to rub or chip off.

We used a mix of a paint gun, and a mini foam roller to paint them, and I have to say, using a foam roller would have made it go a lot faster, as out paint gun gave very little coverage. We made sure to let the paint dry and cure for a day or so in between coats. And I thought we would be done in a weekend. Lol. #monthslater

My husband even built me a trash bin out of pallets. But now I can’t use the foot pedal to open it.

This is Jason’s throne, aka highchair built by my husband.

This little succulent pop of green makes me so happy… I’m doing my best to keep it alive. Haha!

June and I use our DIY pallet kitchen island mainly for a workstation.

You can get this free printable I created for Mantraband HERE.

One thing I would really love to put into our kitchen is a little work desk for June… like an old school desk to store all her drawings and crayons.

I’m a big fan of minimal, but practical open counter storage. So cheerios and hanging mugs are a must.

I am so proud of her little artistic abilities, but she draws at 100 mph, so I have the hardest time picking which ones to save for her baby book, and which ones to make “disappear.”

I bet you can’t tell that I like turquoise. Haha!

Just in case you thought I wasn’t a normal, modern human being, you can actually see our stack of DVD’s on the shelf of the hutch.

This pallet island is one of my favorite things EVER. and it cost us nothing but screws to make.

My favorite textures to design with are blue glass, wood, and rusty metal up against white walls. White just makes everything pop. I am so addicted to white on walls.

Stay tuned for tutorials on how we did everything. Let me know if you have any questions below. XO

Sources:

Cabinet & Drawer pulls: Lowes

Paint on Cabinets: Aces Hardware, pure white latex paint, in semi gloss

Vases and Basets: Homegoods, TG Maxx, And Michaels

Metal Arrow: Vintage Marque Lights

Everything else: We probably built or made it. Lol! Check out our DIY archives HERE.