Come On In... New Kitchen and Laundry Room

Okay friends, thanks for coming back to see the rest of our kitchen!  Your feedback yesterday absolutely made my day.  THANK YOU!!!

During our first showing I immediately loved the layout of the family room/kitchen area and how open it all is.

I think this was the biggest transformation.  Here's what it used to look like...

... and here it is now!

Then...

Now!

The whole kitchen/eat-in area is textured and was a really pretty "tuscan orange" (if you saw my old house or the house before that you know how much I love a tuscan color theme), but I wanted something a little less "warm" this time around.

 We had the cabinets done by The Painter Chicks here in McKinney and I can't say enough great things about their work.  They refinished the cabinets in our old house and I was obsessed with them, so we hired them again to finish these cabinets exactly like our old ones.  

They're total artists and it was so fun to watch the process unfold again.  Here was our kitchen when we moved in.  The cabinets were GORGEOUS, but with the hardwood floors and tuscan orange walls it was VERY dark.  The pictures below are a little more accurate than the listing photos.

The girls from The Painter Chicks came and removed all of our drawers and doors and took them to their off-site location where they worked on those for a week or so.  Everything was sanded, painted, then hand distressed, glazed and sealed.  It's a long process.  After that they were in our house for a little over a week doing the same things on all of the cabinet bodies.

It was a super fun week :)

Everything that was supposed to be in a drawer was on the window seat area and on the floor.  Awesome.

It started to come together...

... and I started to get REALLY excited!

And then it was done!!!  (the walls aren't this green or bright... I have no clue why they're looking soooo green in this pic!)

The only thing missing to complete the look I was going for was the hardware.  I buy our hardware from a guy who sells it at our local Trade Days flea market.  It's only once a month so I had to wait until the right weekend rolled around.

I feel like hardware is a low cost way to make a BIG change!  I bought all of our hardware for under $150... and that was for 36 pieces.  His prices are amazing and they're great quality.  If you're local, be sure to check out Jim's Discount Cabinet Hardware next time you're at Trade Days.

These cabinets may look a little different than our old ones and that's because the cabinets themselves have more bevels and such, so the distressing is heavier which I LOVE!

Kettle - Salt and Pepper Cellar (under $20!)

Dish Towel

I wanted to do something different with the island and tie in the black appliances (at some point I'd like stainless, but they're fairly new and work great, so they stay), black table base, black mirror, etc. and so we went with solid black (with no hardware).

The only weird thing about having my cabinets done distressed white is that they're up next to solid white moldings and doors and while we thought about having those doors distressed themselves... where does it stop?!?! We have doors to the dining room, the laundry room door, trim, back door,  etc.  We're leaving them for now. ;)  

I can't imagine NOT having a black island at this point!  So glad we made that call!

I was taking pictures and dinner needed to be started :)

In our old house all of our cabinet doors had single knobs instead of pulls.  These doors are significantly bigger and the single knobs looked silly.  I am loving the handles on the upper doors!

That door in the background leads to our laundry room, so I thought I'd show y'all that as well!

First, let's have a moment to reminisce about my old laundry room.  While it was functional, it was essentially a hallway with a washer/dryer in it.  So when I saw the new laundry room I was giddy :)

A window, folding counter and hanging bar?!?! Yes, please!!!

This sign hung in our very first house and I love that we still have it.

After looking at these pictures I'm thinking I may need to hang this sign above this wall of cabinets... look at the first laundry room picture above.  Way better, right?!?

And the other side...

This is where we keep Jack Bauer's crate and food bowls, etc. and the desk area is where the kids keep their kindles plugged in.

I picked up this sign but don't love it anywhere.  My plan is to bring it up to school with me, but I may just wait - we're building a new high school which means I get to move out of the "math trailer" next school year and back into a BIG CLASSROOM! WOO HOO!!! My plan is to completely start over on my classroom decor and I think that this will fit in well with the ideas I  have floating around in my head :)

And looking from the laundry room back into the kitchen...

Next to the refrigerator is a built in desk area.  Ideally I would love for this to be clean and be a writing desk of sorts... but the boys both have online homework and all three kids love to play on the computer (have y'all checked out www.abcya.com before??? SO GOOD!) and so having a computer out in our common space was the smartest and safest choice.  We'll be able to easily monitor computer "play time" as well as homework.

While it's not as big or gorgeous as the kitchen window in our old house, I am growing to love this little space :)

I. Adore. This. Picture.

I also adore this picture because it's two of my favorite things... hydrangeas and Dave getting dinner ready :)

This door leads into the dining room...

And just in case I didn't make my case for lamps strong enough yesterday...

See what I mean??? :)

So... there you have it!  Thanks for sticking with these monster posts :)

I always enjoy seeing other people's homes and hope you have enjoyed seeing mine as well.  I have plans to share the master bedroom next week!

Happy Thursday, Friends!!!

PS - This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on a link and make a purchase I may receive a small commission.  THANK YOU!!!