Fancying up the kitchen (the three Rs: Rugs, Radios, and hickoRy flooRs)
(Ok… That third R was a bit of a stretch…) (and technically that’s four Rs…)
The other day, I posted about how excited we were to have made a decision on flooring for our kitchen. When you live in a house with blue 1980s-era peel and stick tile in your kitchen, the prospect of new flooring is a happy one indeed. Here’s what we’ve decided on (with a Stonington Gray paintchip to represent our walls, and the countertop we’re considering too…)
And, just as a reminder of the current state of our kitchen, here’s what she looks like (with all her 1940s lovelieness)…
(In case you’re wondering, let’s consider this a stock image. The mirror above the stove, as you may remember from earlier this week, is now above the fancy faux-fireplace in our living room. And the pantry has had a little redo since too… But it’s rather dreary here at the moment, and my kitchen wasn’t feeling particularly photogenic today [ie: I got super lazy and didn't do the dishes last night.] Rest assured, though, it still sortof looks like this. :)
Flooring chosen (and little happy dance danced), the folk at Urban Outfitters have now let me know that there’s something else my kitchen needs. Look what I found while randomly wandering around the Urban Outfitters site the other night…
I won’t lie: I got super excited. But just as I was about to hit the big blissful “BUY” button, I noticed the following words (in mocking red print): Back Order. Until June. And then I got super sad. Grumble. (Perhaps I’m not the only one who feels that a cheery little rug could be the perfect companion for a happy little kitchen.) Nonetheless (and because I’ve been thinking about it nonstop for the last few days) (some people think about politics in their spare time, others worry about global warming… Me? I obsess over rugs) (well, and global warming) I’m pretty certain I’ll just give in and buy the backordered little rug and wait (somewhat) patiently until June. June is only two months away afterall. And that’s only 60-ish days. I can wait that long. Really. :)
My other (waaay more extravagant) kitchen-want of the moment? I want a Tivoli. SO BAD. See the spot above my sink (where the silver radio resides currently)…
…that there spot would really like a Tivoli please. :) The little silver radio is perfectly functional, but just imagine how lovely this would look in its place…
…or this sexy silver-faced version (dear silver Tivoli, I love you)…
Oooh. Or this one…
…and, well, I know I currently have nothing yellow in my kitchen, but c’mon – how ridiculously cheery is THIS…
…and don’t even get me started on the blue one. (Oh how I adore the blue one!)
Admittedly, it’s not the most practical purchase ever. Ok, it’s not a practical purchase AT ALL. Really, who needs a $200-ish radio for their kitchen. Probably (alright, definitely) not me. And I will likely never push the big fat “BUY” button for this purchase (since, well, I could floor most of my kitchen for that same $200. Or feed Sweetie and me for a month. Or repaint my entire second floor. Etc.) But a girl can dream, non?
So there you have it! My mid-week roundup of the stuff I’d really like to put in my kitchen. We could seriously make this a weekly event, I think. The internet is evil. But so good. Kind of like poutine – I know quite well that a big bowl of french fries smothered in gravy and cheese is hardly a healthy food, but sometimes poutine just calls to me. And I can’t resist. The internet is the same. Minus the clogged arteries and expanding waistline.
Leave a commentThe Allure of new flooring (daydreams of a fantastic floating kitchen floor)
Once upon a time, a long long time ago, I found this picture (from Jessica Helgerson Interior Design) and swooned just a little…
…it was love. :) Twu wuv, in fact (as the Bishop in the Princess Bride would have declared.) The gray walls. The dark countertops and lovely marble backsplash. The white cupboards. The wood floors. Sigh… This is the image that inspired the gray/white/red colour scheme in our current kitchen.
And so, my obsession with that lovely pic in mind, I’m not sure why it took me so long to realize that my own kitchen could benefit from wood floors. Maybe it was the presumed cost. Maybe it was the seemingly non-diy-ness of installing hardwood. I dunno. But the thought of putting some sort of wood-type floor in my kitchen had somehow completely evaded me.
Until this weekend.
But first, let’s backtrack to 2004 for a moment, shall we? :)
Our last house had ugly flooring. Uuuuugly. Like, possibly even worse than the 1980s-blue-peel-and-stick tile situation here in our current house. Really. It was ba-ad. Our old kitchen was home to brown 1970s peeling linoleum. Need a visual? Prepare yourself…
Yeppers. We actually bought a house with a kitchen that looked like THAT. We’re brave, brave souls.
We lived with that floor for over five years. Until about a month before we listed that house, in fact (at which point we jumped into crazy full-fledged flooring mode.) Because the flooring was SO ridiculously old, we didn’t even consider taking it up. Instead, we put a tile-look floating floor (by Allure) right on top. And it looked great (and, also importantly, was semi-simple to install ourselves!) Here’s the (rather grainy – sorry ’bout that) after (from the night we moved out)…
We also de-wallpapered and re-painted EVERY SQUARE INCH of that house. (But that’s a whole other story.)
And so (fast forwarding back to 2012), it suddenly dawned on me the other day that the answer to our current flooring woes might be to install the same type of floating floor directly over the blue-tile-disaster that currently resides in our kitchen. A quick trip to Home Depot later, and I was sold. We will again be making friends with Allure Trafficmaster Resilient Flooring, this time in a Hickory-plank finish. I’m quite excited about the reunion. :)
Here is the floor we’ll be going with…
…along with the sample laminate countertop I’m considering and a Stonington Gray paint chip I wrestled up from my ginormous pile o’ paintchips (it’s already on my walls and I adore it.) Not too shabby eh? And perhaps even reminiscent of my inspiration pic. Should we look at that again? Let’s look again. :)
Sigh. It’s so lovely. :) And, well, since I’m a Google-search/Pinterest junkie, here are a couple more pics I found of the exact same Allure Hickory flooring in other people’s homes…
This one is from a super cute blog called Creative Little Daisy:
And then there’s this bathroom renovation from Southern Hospitality Blog…
And here’s a look at this same flooring in (Never Home) Maker‘s (originally carpeted – ick!) kitchen (and it looks lovely!):
Yep. I think Allure Trafficmaster Resilient Flooring may again find its way into my home. Will it be a fun little DIY jobbie? Likely not. It’s somewhat easy to install, but getting it right is a wee bit finicky. It’ll be worth it, though. I hope. My kitchen, sans 1980s-blue-peel-and-stick flooring, will likely be a much prettier place. :)
PS – if you’re not familiar with my Princess Bride reference above, please click here for one of my all-time favourite movie moments! (Skip to 1:25 if you want to get straight to the punchline… although the entire wedding scene makes me giggle.) (Mawwage.) (Teehee.)
Leave a commentMy lovely little 1940s kitchen (it’s not perfect, and there’s still lots left to do, but it makes me happy :)
I adore my kitchen. It’s old (half the cupboard doors don’t close properly without a little help.) And it still needs a lot of work (pictures showing the disasterous floor and beat up countertops to follow!) But I love it. It’s a little eclectic and kinda cute. It’s e-clute-tic. (Teehee.) And it’s where I make brownies and chocolate bark and yummy soups and all sorts of goodness that feeds my Sweetie and my friends. :) Do I wish I had a dishwasher? Omg oui. Do I wish I had more cupboard space and prettier appliances? Oui oui. But for now it’s quasi-functional and pretty-ish and it makes me happy (at least from baseboards up – just don’t look at the floor.)
Just to show progress to-date, here are a few befores (photos stolen directly from the house listing when we bought it) and after-ishes (the -ishness because there’s still so much left to do.)
Before, with a seemingly pointless and rather greasy (blek) chair rail that ran around the room and dirty blue walls:
Don't you just love the brass switchplate on the island? Yup. Me too. Was a selling feature, for sure.
After – chair rail removed, ugly light fixture replaced and everything (ceiling, walls, cupboards, windows, and trim) repainted (the walls with BM Stonington Gray, and the cupboards and trim and such with BM Snowfall White) (it’s close-ish to the white of my white appliances, just a wee bit creamier):
Before (I love that they attempted to stage the island for photos, but left the ginormous bag of dog food sitting out on the floor [next to the fridge] in the background…):
That's one very whirly fan!
After (sans massive bag of kibble, and with lights swapped out for ones that actually match and aren’t icky):
Sweetie chose the pendant for over the island. He did good eh?
Before (with coffeemaker perched on top of the microwave on the too-small kitchen cart):
Nothing screams "lots of counter space!" to a potential home buyer like stacking your appliances...
After (with a properly fitting kitchen cart [best kijiji score ever!] and minus the random appliances plugged into the stove) (although I did forget to move the giant pile of mail off the island… just ignore that k?):
I'll eventually get around to painting the wood beam around the island - promise!
Much better eh? I like to think so. :) Here are a few details too…
The view looking toward the front door, with my pretty little painted piano stool (and that big pile of mail again – just keep ignoring that…)
The mirror over my stove is one of my favouritest HomeSense buys ever! And I love having a mirror over my stove (made possible, of course, by the fact that no one in the past 70-ish years has bothered to install a proper [and, um, I think mandatory] range hood above it. I won’t tell if you don’t. :) I’m sure I’ll go through gallons of Windex trying to keep it clean, but I don’t care. It’s a little unconventional and rather pretty and I love it. :)
A LOT of people told me to remove the 1940s-ish scalloped edge above my sink when we moved into the house, but I absolutely love it and just ignored them all (those scallop-hating sillyheads.)
I replaced all the old black pulls and hinges on the cupboard doors with pretty brushed nickle ones when I repainted the cupboards last summer. These have just a tiny little bit of detail. I quite like them. :)
My ikea Grundtal rail holds my grandmother’s old measuring spoons and cups (and some newer ones too.) I love having these out. They’re old and remind me of her. The super cute polka dot bowls belong to the cats.
And tada – there you have it! The prettier parts of my kitchen. It’s not at all perfect, but I like it. :)
And now (insert dramatic: dun dun dun…) for some ugliness (and there’s lots)…
Our countertops are archaic. And scratched. And pitted. And worn. And kinda blue. Ish.
Ack eh? We’ll be replacing them at some point, but I haven’t yet decided with what. I’m kinda liking the look of the ikea butchers’ block countertops at the moment, but I’m a wee bit worried about watermarks and stains and maintenance and such (even though people who have them tend to say they’re awesomely durable.) That said, the butchers’ block countertops aren’t hugely expensive (I think they’re even cheaper than laminate) so it wouldn’t be a huge investment… Planning a trip to ikea very soon (yay!) so I might know more about beautiful wooden countertops shortly. :)
And then, once we get new countertops, we can also get a new sink and faucet. Oh how I miss my double sink. And my pullout faucet. Lots. And lots.
Oh. And then there’s my floor…
Yup, it’s pretty snazzy. In case you can’t quite tell, I’ve got old peel-and-stick tiles, on top of old peel-and-stick tiles, on top of something else, with maybe something else underneath. And, sadly, the floor will likely be the last thing I replace in the kitchen. While I (at least) have a vague idea of what I’d like to do for the countertops, I have no clue what to install on the floor (and whatever I put on the kitchen floor will continue through the hallway, since that old brown carpet is ug-ly. Times ten. Which also means it has to match the old hardwood in my living room and dining room, the faux-tile linoleum in my loo, and the wood-look laminate flooring in my sunroom.) (Did I mention I inherited a hodge-podge of flooring?) I’m sort of waiting to hear how Sherry and John (a la Young House Love) (hi Sherry and John!) make out with their cork floors (they’re currently mid-amazing kitchen reno) (nothing like using other bloggers as flooring guinea pigs, eh?) to decide whether cork could be an option.
So there you go! Kitchen tour chez Joy. :) Still lots left to do, but it’s come quite a ways so far (at least I think it has.) I’ll keep you posted on the countertop situation. :) And once I’m done stalking YHL’s kitchen reno, I’ll let you know if cork flooring might be in my future too. For now, my kitchen is at least fairly functional and pretty pretty-ish. Just don’t stare directly at the floor or countertops. :)
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