kitchen and a house tour

next stop on the house tour is my kitchen. this was the first room to be renovated in the house. it had been an explosion of fake butcher block. literally, old, old, wood cabinets (not the pretty kind), fake butcher block laminate counters, plus butcher block wallpaper back splash. it was a sight i tell you!

my favorite part of the room is the vintage school house light we bought for over the island. it has an unusual shape you don't see often in these and definitely gets noticed by everyone who enters. the back splash tile is a nice iridescent diamond shaped glass that i installed. yep, i have a love affair with tile cutting saws and love to tile! i don't have a huge budget for any renovations we do, so i cut cost by doing a lot of the work myself. this kitchen probably costs about half of what it should have because we did a lot ourselves and didn't go for the extravagant extras like decorative edging on the granite or fancy crown moulding. adding open shelving into your cabinet layout is also a big cost saver, plus it breaks up boring expanses of cabinets.

this window looks out to the backyard and is semi curved around the table. right now we all fit in this space pretty well for dinner, but once my two munchkins grow a bit, things will be getting kind tight in that area :)

this wall houses our beloved fair fish "fred". fred has been with us for three years now and is hanging in there like a champ. (slight sarcasm:)

i painted a chalkboard section on the wall and displayed a vintage metal ice cream sign above that. the chandelier peeking out in this pic is a recent addition my mom just brought down to me. it hung at my childhood kitchen table and before that, it originally hung in my great grandparents home above the grocery store they owned in the 1920. lurve it!