We started our first home renovation the day we closed on the house, and although I love the kitchen that I designed, we have done a few upgrades throughout the past 5 years as budget has allowed. Let’s start out with a few before pictures, so you can see how far we have come, and if you want to read about the first renovation, you can read the blog post here. It was a complete gut job of the entire room.

Where we started…

And here’s a picture of where we landed after wrapping up the first renovation… It was so much better, light and bright, but still a few parts I didn’t love like the gap at the top of our tile and ceiling, and the beat up dishwasher that we kept for some reason ha.

And now for the updates that I have been dying to share with you! What I LOVE about our kitchen from the initial remodel is the openness from not having any upper cabinets, the hardwood floors that are carried throughout the house and warm up the space, the pull out drawers for most of our cabinets, and the quartz countertops that we chose. And my husband loves his gas range, and I’m happy he’s happy.

What I didn't love was that we ran into trouble keeping the crown moulding where our tile was and had a gap where the tile didn't quite meet the ceiling. I also regretted the gray grout the instant it dried - It wasn't supposed to be so dark.

A year in..

I repainted the island and the door in the kitchen to a softer blue, and used Benjamin Moore sheer romance. I am super happy with the change and love the lighter blue! We painted over the gray on the kitchen walls (and most of our main floor), for Sherwin Williams Snowbound. A nice creamy white.

I also made the striped blue & cream inside mount roman shades, and love how they softened the space, but didn't love blocking that much light. I did end to keeping them up for about a year.

I did a little diy on our old dishwasher since we don’t have room for a paneled one, and added a white appliance “sticker” to it, to help it blend in with our cabinets. It made me hate our dishwasher just a little bit less.

I feel like our kitchen was still looking a little too industrial with the gray grout, stainless hood and the double arm sconces. I've been changing things slowly, all to make the grout look better- it has helped, but I still regret the gray.

Two years in we finally upgraded the stainless steel hood for a custom one, and had our original contractor build a white wood hood and install a better vent. I love that it just blends in more with the tile, and it looks so much better with the gold lights. We also have a much stronger fan, which makes a big difference.

A new chandelier over the island, that I have been obsessing over forever replaced the cute little Anthropologie pendant. 3 light bulbs instead of one has made a huge difference, and the bubbles make such a fun statement in the kitchen.

I have been doing upgrades over the past 5 years all to make the tile look better and less industrial , and although I love the upgrades I still dislike the tile. The very second we finished it I regretted the gray grout, but it was too late. I asked the contractors several times about getting the old grout out to redo just the grout and they said it was too much work, so we finally picked a new tile that I love, and redid the whole backsplash. I went with a square white zellige tile to give texture with a nod to the historic home. This time I most definitely went with a creamy white grout.

The tile is from TileBar and is the Portmore glossy ceramic tile, meant to look like a hand made zellige.

With our *final updates on the kitchen I ordered new fun sconces with a light aqua green shade to go over the windows and add a pop of color. These were installed after the new backsplash went in, and we also added back the crown moulding 🙌

When we did our tile to the ceiling originally, they tried to put back the crown moulding over the tile, and it stuck out and looked terrible. Our ceiling was uneven and we had a gap for probably a year before he had plaster people come fill in our ceiling to try and smooth things out. With the new tile was a chance to plan for things and bring back the crown moulding to match the rest of the kitchen, and we both love it!

We kept the citrus garden roman shades that I had made this past year. Learning from the first attempt, I installed these as outside mount so they wouldn't cover much of the window. Our windows are so small we need all the natural light we can get in the kitchen. This is still my all time favorite print - it's just so cheery!

With this last round of updates I finally love our kitchen and feel like it fits the style of our historic home.