I thought you guys might like a tour of where I’ve been spending much of my time there days. My only reason for not sharing it sooner was because I didn’t have the photography skills to capture this little dark space. I swear it’s much darker than it looks! Thank you Hannah for these photos πŸ™‚

It’s a cute, interesting little thing, isn’t it? My biggest qualm with the space isn’t the awful counter tops, or retro weird tinted and drawn wall tiles —- no, my biggest problem is the lack of natural light in the space. Unfortunately, I don’t think this will be changing anytime soon.  Fortunately—- it’s still a cute, interesting little thing haha– with a few details that would be hard to find otherwise (stained glass!). I do look forward to changing this space in the future, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying it’s quirkiness. I’ve grown to find it’s eccentricities to be charming. The two biggest upgrades in this space (if you don’t count moving the fridge out of the room and into the back) was the paint (good bye ugly brown cabinets!) and putting butcher block over the island counter top. It was a simple (brilliant!?) fix to the ugly granite. I found two large planks of butcher block and hired a carpenter to mold (?? adhere?? stick) the two pieces together—- then cut the wood to fit the almost rectangular space, and create a lip along the bottom. The butcher block now sits perfectly on top of the granite— you can see a tiny bit of the granite, if you look, but again, another quirk and it keeps the granite intact. This way, if for whatever reason I decided to move, I could simply pull it up, to find undamaged granite— not diminishing the resale value of the granite. You know, just in case (commitment issues). 


I do plan on painting the space behind the shelf, where the fridge sits, sometime in the next few months (post cookbook project). I have no idea why the fridge was sitting where it was when I moved in. It was awkward! 70% of it was sticking out from the wall—- it was just plain silly. Now, the shelf holds all our most used things—- three mortar and pestles (papa bear, mama bear, baby bear), a stack of (mostly decorative) cookbooks, garlic, onions, potatoes, and our piles and piles of cloth. As well as a few baskets underneath that have our baking goods, coffee goods, and and grocery bags. On top of the fridge sits Alex’s bread proofing baskets, and a huge basket filled with vitamins and other first aid type things.






Where the microwave should be (or was intended to be for whoever designed the shelves), are our most used bowls, coffee cups, and a few of our everyday cooking essentials (vanilla sugar for Alex’s coffee and nutritional yeast for my addicted toddler). Our kitchen is a small space—- but with an open floor plan it feels much larger. And the island allows the three of us to easily cook all together. At one point, it was a closed room too— there’s a space where a pocket door once was— why I’m not sure, but it’s there. Like I said, it’s just a quirky little space.

Before:

Another hugeee improvement was removing the dated mirrored (and etched!!) walls. Adding the chalkboard on one side and just simply painting it white on the other—- oof, much better!

And what would this be without a proper before photo in all it’s grainy cell phone glory?
Much better, right? πŸ™‚

edited to add:
more of a full shot πŸ˜‰ 



details: 
 (kitchen) mixer print, utensil pot: thrifted, tea kettle: thrifted, mushroom print: vintage, outdoor food covers (clearance), placemats (clearance), cloth napkins, mortar and pestle, coffee grinder, espresso maker (holy, best investment ever), stand up mixer, green apron: thrifted, red apron, blue aprons, rabbit bowl: home goods, how to cook everything vegetarian, india, 365 reasons to sit down and eat, great chefs cook vegan, onion bowl: world market, butterfly bowls/mugs, white geometric bowls, other assorted bowls here or home goods, shot glasses: mexico.
(on me) shirt c/o anthropologieshorts, shoes are from a small indian import store.

17 Comments

  1. I love that you had the cabinets painted white! It looks so much better. It gives it a much cleaner look! My husband and I are currently searching for a new house since we are relocating for his job and every house we look at has awful orange-y oak cabinets. I've shown him your kitchen before and after several times saying "See you CAN paint them white and they will look much Much better!" Thanks for this new post so I can show him more photos!

    Also I'm sitting here watching Barefoot Contessa on food network thinking, "Drea totally needs her own show." You totally do.

  2. I think this kitchen is a good size ours is way smaller than this and its a galley kitchen so it's really hard to get around when there are multiple people in there. I love what you did with it.

  3. It is refreshing to see such a creative "real" home. So often we visit blogs that just seem so out of touch with how people really live. Your space is not "perfect" and that is what makes it so "perfect". Love it

  4. It's such a lovely space, it's inspiring to see. I love your collection of chopping boards and your neat and useful shelves full of pretty things. Your taste is very good Drea, it's beautifully done. CJ xx

  5. It *is* MUCH better! I admire your vision!! I'm not sure I would have looked at that space and considered it salvageable – but you did a lovely job!

  6. A great cooking space but I wouldn't mind hanging around by the kitchen island with a nice cup of coffee too. So welcoming, Drea xx

  7. Thanks for sharing! I think the granite is gorgeous! But I love what you've done with the place. I'd love to see a zoomed out view πŸ™‚

  8. So nice! However, the last two "before" photos are sadly the only ones that give the best feel of what the WHOLE SPACE looks like as opposed to the super tight cropped vignette photos or the new version of your kitchen. So where does your fridge live now?!

    • I didn't have a picture and bother putting one in because I assumed people saw it in prior posts! But I just edited the post to add a (mesh) shot from today πŸ˜‰