KITCHEN MAKEOVER: THE BEFORE

Hi Everyone!

Hope you had a great weekend. This week I'll be sharing my mini kitchen makeover. "Mini" because we made just a few changes, BUT I'm really excited about sharing them with you! Also, I realized that I've barely posted about my kitchen thus far, so please forgive me!

Our kitchen is a galley with an eat-in area. It is stark white with black countertops. The cabinet handles are super moden.  I'm kind of a rustic/farmhouse girl when it comes to kitchens, so this incredible blessing (a new eat-in kitchen) actually took a little while to get used to. But now we LOVE it.  Eat-in kitchens in NYC are something to be grateful for. And we are! Our first apartment in NYC had a tiny "kitchen". It had absolutely zero counter space and was located smack dab in our living room. We love garlic, so yes, our throw pillows smelled...delicious. Here's a picture of that (DISCLAIMER: I actually think this picture makes the space look BIGGER than it was):

Yes. That is our living room, kitchen, and bathroom.  So you can imagine our excitement when we moved into a place with dedicated kitchen! Here are some "before shots" that will help me narrate the story of our kitchen...

Here's what it looked like on move-in day...

We didn't own a table or chairs, so it stayed like that for a while! Kinda awkward. But we finally found our first piece of furniture. A mid-century table made in Vermont and found at Housingworks:

 It took us 30 minutes to get a SUV cab that day. I'll never forget it! Here's a pic of the table in situ... still no chairs! But with a handmade runner from our Honeymoon in Tulum, Mexico.

We really liked her! But, um, we needed chairs. Pronto. Enter our farmhouse/shabby chic/pottery barn chairs...purchased as stand-ins at $15 a pop. Great chairs, but they were literally purchased so we could eat dinner at our new table. Not forever. Also Housingworks:

Then we added some curtains, a pendant lamp, and styled it up a bit:

And that's how it stayed for a looong time! Well except for the addition of our LIME (remember him?)

Oh, those chairs were just ridiculously huge for that table. They never pushed in!

This summer we decided to make some changes. It feels great to live in a place long enough where you can make changes to things that aren't working!

Here's a teaser of the "after":

Lots more photos and all the sources to come on Friday!

Love,