Kitchen Decorating Details

I've been switching around and deciding on what I want to decorate the kitchen with.  Here are a few photos...

I found this little list & key holder at Homegoods.  The gray matched the cabinets!  I put it on the wall between the cabinets where we have the computer and the dining room doorway.


This ---->
is the little wall between the butler's pantry & the kitchen.

You can see it from the dining room table, so I wanted to have something pretty there, and not look messy (like the "To Do" list might, or our bulletin board does!)

I put my little mason jar flower vase.  The iron kitchen tools were a Christmas gift from my parents (mom & I found them at an antique shop)



To the right of the windows that stretch across the back of the kitchen, I put my little chick wall hanging.  This is really neat- it is magnetic and has different pictures that can be swapped out... 

I  chose the chicks for now, since they go well with the decor on my under-counter shelves.

That jar-looking thing on the top shelf is an antique mason jar chick feeder that Mike got for Christmas.  To the right of that is a wire chicken egg holder (thinking I should either move that to the top of the counter for daily egg gathering, or maybe put some wooden eggs in it and keep it on the shelf... not sure yet!)

Second shelf has our egg scale & prayer jar.  The napkins bounce between here and the center of the table.

Bottom shelf has an antique rolling-pin, bowl (love the yellow!) and some cookbooks- I pulled out our Irish cooking ones for St. Patrick's Day!



This nesting measuring cup set I found at TJ Maxx months ago... with the blue & yellow, I had to get it!




My aunt & uncle came to visit recently and brought us this cool cheese board... it's a melted bottle, and since we live in "horse country" they thought the Saratoga theme went well (along with the awesome blue color!)  We love it!



I held up the cheese board so that you could see the light shining through the blue glass... in the background, you can see that the lights in the kitchen cabinets have finished being installed!

This is the spot we're using for prepping/serving coffee when we have guests, so I put the Maxwell House tray up there (yard sale score!)  The tea tray was a Christmas gift from Mike's parents.

I've been having fun swapping out decorations above the stove too...
I tried out some blue & white for late winter, and am now bringing in some flowered items for early spring.  I'm already eyeing some of the more flowery & rose patterned items for June.













Inside the Butler's Pantry...

Mike's parents gave us these framed prints when we were first married & living in an apartment. They are signed & numbered prints by Bo Jai.  The top one is a basket of onions and the bottom is apples.  I thought they went really well in here!









On the window sill I placed a few old little bottles, and the base of a tiny oil lamp. I need to find a mini chimney for it- that's one of the items on my list of things to look for at antique shops & yard sales this summer!

Cat Door

One of the things we really liked about the old basement door was that we had installed a cat door in it.  This allowed us to keep the kitty litter down in the basement, and let the cat  come & go as he pleases.  It also gave him a place that he could escape, away from the playful puppy when he wished!

So now we were searching for a new place to put the cat door. Our first thought was in the hallway near the coat closet.  This would be right next to where the old basement door was.

Coat closet & hallway

Reverse- inside the basement stairway

Unfortunately, when Mike drilled a test hole, there was a beam in the way.  Then we began to re-consider anyway, since that little door would be in line of sight from the dining room.

Another option for getting the cat into the basement stairway were the family room wall- but that would be right next to the TV, and we weren't crazy about that.  So, we ended up cutting a hole in the brand new basement door that is in the new kitchen!

This seemed like the least noticeable and least offensive of the options.  Plus it would be fairly easy to reverse if we ever wanted to.

We now have a very happy cat!

Kitchen Window Trim

The week between Christmas & New Years, the contractor finished the window trim on the back kitchen windows.

We then got to work sanding them down (they were a little rough) and then priming & painting.

Once dry, we put the outlet covers on...

I was looking for white cafe curtains, similar to what we had in the old house kitchen.  Unfortunately, those curtains were too short to re-use (and had already been put up the well house windows- you can sort of see them out there in the pics above!)  I couldn't find similar ones anywhere in a store... I prefer to buy them in person to make sure I like the feel of them!  BUT- I did find these, which I decided to try out and see how we like them.  

There weren't curtain rods that were long enough to run across all 5 windows (we needed it to be over 9 feet!)  And I'm hesitant to drill into the newly finished trim anyways!  But I found these oil rubbed bronze pressure rods, and I got the little rings so that the curtains open & close easily.

I'm pleased with them so far!  I was worried the pattern would be too much, but I think it works brining in more blue to contrast the yellow.

Floors Stained!

Excited to come home & find this sign...

The floors are a bit darker than we expected... but we're happy with how they're looking.

From the tile at the backdoor

I snuck past the plastic (but stayed in the hallway) to get this photo!

Four more days of not being able to go in here!

Sheet Rock- Day 5

While the guys were working upstairs, the contractor had a few tweaks to do to make the walls level/plumb for the drywall.

Strips of wood added

More rock removal!

Now they finally are ready to get some of the downstairs dry wall up!  They have started with the ceiling...

From the backdoor

Reverse- from the butler's pantry

Half way done with the half bath ceiling

Grrr- The plumbers didn't finish putting a trap here,
so a hole was left open for them to complete that.

Break Through- First Floor!

Things are getting messy around here!!!

They're doing their best to contain the dust, but it's inevitable at this stage.

It's all incased in plastic for the time being, so hard to get a good sense of what it's going to look like!

Here's what we've got going on...

Family Room Opening

View from the "Kitchen"

View from the family room

 First Floor Hallway Opening

View from Foyer

This is going to become a coat closet, but they had to break through to move the basement door around to the back (it is located on the right under those stairs).  The reverse of this is where the refrigerator is going to be set back into the wall in the new kitchen.

This is the view between the sheets of plastic in the hallway.
The old basement doorway, and the new one is moving to the back, so it opens into the kitchen.

 Kitchen/Dining Room Opening

View from old kitchen

This doorway will be coming from the NEW dining room, and go into the butler's pantry, turning right to enter into the NEW kitchen.