There are only a few rooms that feel "done" to me in the house. The kitchen is one of them. (Howevs, I have a feeling I'll paint the island a new color at least every couple of years. It's already been three shades of blue, which is totally normal.)
This is what the kitchen looked like a few months after we moved in, before I got to work on it.
Those counter stools were my dream stools--from Restoration Hardware. I ordered them for the new house before we even moved into it. They were so regal and comfortable. They were rich-folk stools. I don't know WTF I was thinking with them because I have two young kids. They soon turned into a nightmare of splotches and stains that just kept getting worse. I literally lost sleep over them. And when other people's kids came over and ate at the island I had to pretend not to worry that they were smudging their Kraft-macaroni-and-cheese hands on my RH stools. Anyway, I couldn't take it anymore so I sold them on Craigslist to a lady who had to recover them because they'd gotten so gross in such a short period of time.

Here are some of the other things I did to make the kitchen my own:
- Swapped out the light fixtures for these pendants by Feiss (they're a knockoff of the fixtures I really wanted, but I love them just as much). Plus, I hung these bastards myself, which saved $.
- Painted the island Benjamin Moore's Van Courtland Blue after I saw this pin and was like DONE. (The island was also Sherwin Williams' Naval for about a year, but so was everyone's kitchen island it seemed.)
- Painted the wall of cabinets Sherwin Williams Alabaster, an old standby for me. Those paintings are all from the Nashville flea market. I eventually want to move them to my bathroom and put this enormous print here instead.
- Drove out to bumfuck Tennessee to pick up a stack of barnwood from the late 1800s. I wore overalls that day. Look how happy I was with my wood. Then, I taught myself how to use a circular saw and cut all the pieces to shape. Nekos and I just screwed them directly into the wall above the backsplash tile. That was a fun and gratifying day.
- Had the roman shades custom-made with a John Robshaw fabric that still makes me weak in the knees. On these, I copied Holly Williams' farmhouse kitchen. See? I copy all the cool people, but then I mash all the copied things together and they become my own. At least that's what I tell myself.
- Swapped the more contemporary cabinet and drawer pulls for cheap-o brass pulls from Home Depot.
- Swapped the hollow core pantry door for a vintage Craigslist find that cost me $100. (Full pantry post coming soon.)
That piece of art by the pantry door is by Chelsea Petaja, a local Nashville artist.
And how lucky were we that the midcentury bar we've had forever fit exactly into this nook by the back door?
This is Grayton, our 10-month-old mutt. This marks his first appearance on the blog.
Stools: Design Within Reach Era Counter Stools
Pendants: Feiss Cadence Mini Pendant
Main cabinet color: Sherwin Williams Alabaster
Island color: Benjamin Moore Van Courtland Blue
Wall color: Sherwin Williams Shoji White
Fabric on roman shades: John Robshaw Baris Chambray
Drawer pulls and cabinet knobs: Home Depot Bedford Brass Cup
Bob Dylan poster: Milton Glaser