Next up in our house tour is the eat-in kitchen. Last week I showed you our living room and I loved all the feedback and advice you gave me! And I am glad you are enjoying this home tour. Our living room opens up to the kitchen and an eat-in kitchen area. I am thankful for this area in our home as it is used constantly – more than our dining room.
You can see here how it is open into the living room. We loved this about our house when we first saw it – the open floor plan.
Unlike the living room, this room has undergone quite a before and after transition.
This was the way it looked a few years into us living here. We had painted before we moved in so that was there from the beginning. We put in new carpet also when we bought the house but didn’t do anything to the kitchen linoleum.
After living here about 5 years, we had ceramic tile installed in the kitchen, I did one of my first big DIY projects and installed a chair rail in here and painted the bottom part of the wall a light green.
Oh, and you can’t see the light in the first picture but it was horrible. That was also replaced with this prettier chandelier.
We also bought a new butcher block table and chairs set off Craigslist for $125 and sold our old one for $75 so were only out $50 which is a great deal for a solid wood pedestal table and chair set. It only came with 4 chairs but I found 1 chair on the side of the road and another 1 at Goodwill for $5 so we have 6 chairs now.
But the curtains were just thrown up there and the room lacked any décor.
A year or so later, I realized the green was just not working. If you read my blog regularly you know I love to change up my placemats and table décor seasonally and the green just wasn’t working with that. So I decided to go with something a little more neutral and painted a medium brown color on the bottom. This medium brown color (a custom color) is also the same brown I used for my DIY painted curtains in the living room. I also finally got some pretty curtains and decorated the room.
Here is how it sits today.
The sheers are from Kohl’s bought on deep discount just tied back with ribbon
Sneak peak of a Valentine’s tablescape I may share later on the blog.
Now for the things I love and the things I want to change.
Things I love:
- I love the color scheme of the different browns in the wall color. It is neutral without being boring. I also enjoy the pops of red in the “EAT letters” (tutorial here for those) and the red dishes displayed in the cabinets. (More on those open doors in the next week’s post on the kitchen
- I am very happy with the tile in the kitchen although I still need to find a way to clean my grout.
- I enjoy the white sheer curtains but also have something I want to change about them
- And I am happy with the décor in here for now. It is simple and I don’t have much wall space but it works.
Things I want to change:
- remove this rack of cookbooks. I need to find another place for them but don’t have anywhere right now. But that is first up on my list to do. I can’t stand how cluttered it looks, but I do use a lot of the cookbooks.
- refinish the table and chairs. It was in good shape when we bought it but it could use some touching up. I would LOVE to refinish the butcher block table and chair seats to a deep walnut brown and then would just repaint the white part white.
- The curtains – I want to raise the curtain rods but the curtains are too short for that. Not sure if I could take the hem out to make them longer or I could possibly replace them with some cheap sheers from IKEA.
- And I need to clean and re-seal the grout once I find something that works.
But for now, this room is pretty much on my DONE list.
Do you have an eat-in kitchen – how do you use it or decorate it?
Hi Christina. I like your kitchen. You were so smart to go with the browns. They really are a neutral backdrop. You may not want to do this, but I went through my cookbooks awhile back and got rid of a few. It helped me get down to 20 or less and now they fit in a cabinet.
Christina, your kitchen looks so polished! It is neutral and still very warm and inviting. The decor choices truly polish the space. I love the browns you chose and all your finishing touches.
Love the calm brown color scheme. Lowe’s and Home Depot carry grout paint…I read about it on The Yellow Cape Cod.
For the curtain panels…try adding a complimentary piece fabric to each of them to lengthen them…it could save you some money rather than buying new sets.
I love your home sooooo much! Your style very much mimics mine. If I lived near you I’d be hanging out at your house all the time. 😉
Luv the browns very warm. Very pretty indeed.
Cheers, Gee
Nice, I want to know where you got the Valentines Placemats, I can’t seem to find any. Was thinking of making but not the greatest at sewing.
Love the browns with pops of color!! We have tile in our kitchen, as well…and a very light colored grout. When we bought our house a year and a half ago, I knew they needed a good scrubbing in the grout area. I put it off and put it off, but just recently finished the job and it made a HUGE difference! I got on hands and knees and with a grout brush, used a solution of Hydrogen peroxide and Dawn dish soap. It was AMAZING! I sometimes used a little baking soda, too, if the area needed further scrubbing. It’s a little rough cleaning it up after scrubbing because the Dawn makes lots of suds…but completely worth it! I kept a bucket of warm water next to me with some microfiber cloths and just scrubbed with the brush then mopped it up with the towels.
Good luck! I love seeing the different areas of your home! Thanks for sharing!
Your kitchen looks great…mix oxyclean and warm water and use a small brush to clean your grout. It’s time consuming but it works. Mop with clean water when you are done ,
Here is a great grout cleaner for you to try! Hope it works out for you! http://aprrilsopinion.blogspot.com/2012/06/amazing-grout-cleaner.html
What a gorgeous kitchen! I love the warm brown color under the chair rail, and how it snugs everything together. As for the cookbooks, have you thought about running a shelf above the windows and/or door?
Thanks for being so inspirational! You always demonstrate fabulous looks without spending much. I have a similar cookbook shelf & I have just embarked on a project to improve it. I am cutting out or copying the recipes that I like or may want & organizing them in several binders which I will cover with beautiful paper or fabric. I am keeping the the cookbooks that have too much, but I am still able to cut way back on the number of books on my shelf.