As soon as we learned that taking walls down to make our current kitchen footprint more open was possible, I knew that meant I could have an island.  (You can read all about the kitchen renovation HERE.)  Without that extra space, a tiny island may have worked, but there wouldn’t be room for anything substantial.  The possibilities are endless now that the walls have come down and the room is open.  As I’ve shared, I didn’t want to do a built-in island, because I wanted the flexibility to have either a table or an island and I thought an antique freestanding piece would be more my speed, anyway.  It would also be more cost effective than ordering the cabinets and a quartz counter to go on top. The only issue is now I needed to find the perfect one and, when you’re looking for something very specific secondhand, you have

Well, we’re living in dust and fluff and clutter, but we’re happy about it because we know we’ll have an awesome kitchen when it’s all done!  I have a pretty low threshold for disorganization and mess, but I’m just making peace with it and I’ll do a deep clean once the house is put back together.  Honestly, there is still a lot of unpacking and organizing that needs to happen, but I learned from our move from PA to MN a little over five years ago that it takes a couple of years to fully get settled in a new home especially if you have a lot of projects going on! Now that the basement staircase is moved, I wanted to show a comparison of how it opened the space and also share a bit more detail about how it was possible.  Moving the stairs was something we wanted to

As I’ve shared in past posts about our kitchen renovation, we are working with a contractor and professionals on the “big stuff” and work that requires licenses and special skills, but we are doing a few things ourselves to stretch our budget a bit further. One of the projects we’re taking on is building a range hood.  We did it in our Pennsylvania kitchen and, in fact, I wrote an HGTV tutorial sharing how we did it.  You can find that tutorial HERE. Remember the cow head?  I actually still have it and I just might find a home for it in this house. Anyway, the range hood insert we selected is the   It’s a range hood that is meant to go into a cabinet, so the controls are on the underside. Range hoods can certainly be a feature, but I want our range hood to be simple so

I almost hate to say that the progress made on the kitchen last week is a little boring, but the walls and staircase being removed were so dramatic that drywall doesn’t seem as noteworthy.  (If you’ve missed the kitchen renovation so far, you can catch up HERE.)  But, exciting progress has been made even if it doesn’t make for flashy photos.  The crew worked on framing, drywall, skim-coating, and removing the top layer of the subfloor.  (There are two layers and one is being removed so the new hardwood floors will be flush with the old ones.)  We also had the electricians for a day and they started moving around switches and outlets. One of the most exciting things, though, is seeing the light coming into the kitchen all the way from the back of the hallway.  It’s so open now while still allowing the kitchen to be its own

Let’s go a little check-in on the kitchen!  I hope you enjoy kitchen renovation posts because you’re going to get a lot of them.  If you’ve missed any kitchen renovation posts, you can catch up HERE.  It is getting really exciting seeing all of the open space.  This space that was hacked up is so big and bright.  I want to be transparent, though, and share that the excitement is tempered a little bit by second-guessing.  Just a tiny bit.  I’m comforted by the fact that I’ve watched friends and even veteran designers go through renovations and have witnessed that a little bit of second-guessing is very normal. I’ve learned from experience and observation that you just need to push through the process until the vision fully comes to life.  Usually, those gut instincts, the research, the sketches, and the hours spent picking and planning are honest and the second-guessing

I have to be completely honest and say that doing a renovation or room makeover, sharing it online, and getting constant feedback can be a bit overwhelming.  I felt that way when I first started work on our previous Minnesota house and, at times, it was exhausting feeling like I have to explain or justify all of my choices.  Before you run away and never leave a comment again, let me say that I learned a lot through the process and it helped me grow.  I got much better at receiving feedback, taking in what was useful, and weeding out what wasn’t.  Well, it’s all useful.  Some comments made me rethink my choices and make adjustments while others made me more certain about my decisions. The other day, someone (in real life) commented that it must be hard to work on a room and get real-time comments about it.  I