Tile

Well, we don't know for sure what our kitchen will look like, but I ordered tile for it today, anyway.

I first noticed the tile in this kitchen, loved it, but, as the tile is Fireclay, it was pretty expensive.

Then, something similar began cropping up in a few kitchen remodels online. I tracked it down and voila, it's totally reasonably priced tile. The most affordable price I found was at Lowe's. Boom. Done. In love.

Here are a couple of photos of it in situ:

I hope it looks as good in person as it does online.

Now to decide white grout or black (hint: probably white).

Color Schemes

Oh. Forgot. New Kitchen Planner Lady gave me new kitchen colors to consider.

Cabinet Color 1 is too blue in the light in our home and Cabinet Color 2 too blah. I don't like the backsplash tile at all (something much better coming soon), but I'm starting to like the countertop a lot. Which is unexpected. I've always loved white with grey/blue veining, was not expecting to like something with a bit of taupe veining as well.

Another Plan?!?!

I went to another local kitchen store the other day. Just to see what cabinets they carried, and if they could compete with prices at Kitchens Plus. And the kitchen designer decided to GIVE ME ANOTHER PLAN TO CONSIDER. NOOOOOOOO. Here I thought I had decided everything, and now she's telling me I need to change it all around?? WE WILL NEVER GET A KITCHENNNN!!!!!

Anyway, here's the plan she suggested:

Good things about this plan:

1) In every other plan, our stove has remained in the same place (which has my back to the kitchen/dining). Putting the stove in the island would let me see the children while cooking.

2) Kitchen triangle is smaller than when the fridge is on the far wall.

3) That island is huge.

4) Feels very open - the walkway to the hallway isn't obstructed at all by fridge/pantry as in other plans.

Ok, yes, it looks nice and open, BUT there are several issues. Big ones.

1) The space between fridge & stove is only 53ish inches. A bit tight if one person is cooking and someone else (say, a small child who wants water) has to get into the fridge.

2) We would have to get a very specialized (read: expensive) oven and/or a very expensive hood.

3) This is probably the most important: the giant size of the island would shrink the width of the dining room to only 8.5 feet. That is not good. Recommended minimum for dining area is at least 9 feet. We have a narrow table and the room already feels cramped; add some people sitting at the counter and no one would be able to get through the space at all!

I'm going to sleep on it a bit, but I'm pretty sure that this will not be our final kitchen layout.

Probably still something like this.... with or without the island overhangs...

Kitchen Inspiration

I have been looking at kitchens for a loooong time. I've saved most of my favorites on Pinterest and Instagram, and I thought I'd share a few here. I'm hoping to gather my thoughts and figure out what I like about each of them.

I know I want shaker-style cabinet fronts with either full overlay or full inset. Other than that, I think I'm torn between two (maybe three) counter/cabinet color combinations....

1) White kitchens - for the longest time, I definitely thought I'd want white cabinets. White cabinets and white/grey marble-look counters. They're so classic and timeless.

2) Colored cabinets - after bringing home tons of color samples and seeing what they looked like in the light in our home, I started to really love blues, greens, and grey cabinet colors as well. Not a surprise since most of the rest of our house is blue, green, or grey. Muted color palettes are the bomb. 

3) Wooden cabinets - wood cabinets have started cropping up more and more and I really like the warmth they add to a space.  

I think the answer to my dream kitchen is a combo of all of the above. One thing that bothered me about white cabinets is that they never seem to be quite the same white as the countertop. One always turned the other more yellow, something I'd like to avoid. I think cabinets with a subtle color would get rid of that problem. And, I do really love wood as a contrast. I love the look of open wood shelves (so pretty), but I do not want to have to dust and keep them styled all the time. Maybe a butcher-block counter on the island with white counters elsewhere? Something that feels like these....

My main goal is to make something I love, but also, I really want something that won't look dated in 5, 10, or 15 years. I hope I can make some good choices!!

Kitchen Layout

Our main concern in remodeling our kitchen has been to get a layout that would best use the space. Shortly after moving in we did two things: we moved the back door out of the kitchen (to a sliding door in the dining room), and we put a second doorway in the wall between kitchen and dining. The first gave us more storage space (and will allow more counter-space in our new kitchen), and the second helped with traffic flow. Before, people would stand in the middle of the kitchen with no clue how to get out; the new door-hole (sounds weird) gave another escape into the rest of the house. Here's what I'm talking about:

We decided pretty early on in planning that we'd like to get rid of the wall between kitchen & dining. Mostly so I can see what Sam and Lukas are destroying in the house while I try to cook. But also, because it'd be much better for entertaining. Right now, anyone that wants to talk to me while I'm doing food prep has to stand right in the middle of the kitchen, and then I have to work my way around them as I cook. We were hoping for a way to make space so visitors/friends/little kids can chat with me while I'm working, without being in the way.

Obviously there are issues with the basement stairs being in the middle of the kitchen, but we aren't willing to do a *major* remodel - removing the wall is major enough for this house. We also have to take into account that both our kitchen and dining room are high traffic areas, and they're not huge (both are roughly the same size at 10x16' each).

Anyway, following are the plans we've seen so far...

Most designers/cabinet centers gave us this layout:

...which is fine, but didn't feel quite right for some reason.

I finally asked someone to draw us a U-shaped kitchen, just to see if it would work, and we ended up really liking it. This is how we planned to do it for quite some time.

I still like this layout a lot. I could probably be talked into it again if someone tried hard enough. I love the vast expanse of countertop this layout provides and, visually, I really like how much less cluttered it looks (compared to an island). Concerns, however: leaving walking space between the bar and back door as well as space for more than one person inside the U. Eric is a really good cook and likes to help a lot, especially when we have company over; we needed more prep space for each of us to stand. Which led us to the following:

The fridge and pantry will likely be reversed from what's shown in this picture, and I'm still not sure we will have the island countertop hang into the dining room... we might make the cabinet bigger and get rid of the overhang? I think it's a little weird to have seating for two on one side and just one on the end? TBD. So many decisions yet to happen. Here's to hoping it all works out...