It’s been a crazy few weeks with the kitchen renovation started, but I can finally give you a bit of an idea of what’s happened! Above is what the kitchen looked like the day we bought the house. We didn’t really do anything to this space because it wasn’t very big, it had just been redone by the previous owners, and I didn’t want to change the countertops or flooring until we lived in the house for a while and decided whether we would keep the same layout or put an addition on (which is what I immediately envisioned as soon as I walked into this house).

I did take that napkin valance down when we moved in, but other than adding our belongings and a few counter stools everything stayed the same. I am perhaps the most excited about getting rid of my countertops which had a faux granite look and my floors which were textured tile that trapped every speck of dirt that came into our house in the most highly trafficked room in the house. Buh-bye!

And here’s what it looked like after day 1 of demo. But we aren’t just gutting the kitchen. We are expanding it. The main reason that we really wanted to do this project is because the space didn’t function well for us. Every time we had people over, everyone got stuck in the kitchen around the island which only sat two people. My husband and I would constantly be bumping into each other when we were making meals, and our family couldn’t sit down for dinner all together so my husband and I would end up standing at the island to eat our dinner with the kids or more often, we’d just wait to eat until later on. I really want us to be able to sit down together for family dinners each night.

We’re also doing a little bit of work in the dining room. We used to have two closets in this space. One was the pantry closet for the kitchen and the other was a clothes closet in our dining room which was a bedroom before we moved into the house. I’ve always wanted to open up these two closets and create a built-in bar and storage for my platters and other entertaining pieces. It’s so frustrating to not use the things you have because they are tucked away in an inconvenient spot so I’m super excited to have a place for everything and everything in its place!

And this is what the former kitchen looks like now! It seems pretty big when you take everything out of it, but there still wasn’t any way to reorganize it to suit what we were looking for.That doorway between the kitchen and dining room is also going to be widened and have a barn door put on it so that I can open up the two rooms when I need to extend my dining room table to its max capacity.

And looking from the old kitchen towards the new section of the kitchen, you can see why we’re pretty excited about our addition! We have wonderful west facing views of Newport and in the winter we have distant south facing views of Easton’s Bay and the Cliff Walk so bumping this out 13 feet and filling it with windows is making a huge difference to the amount of light and the scenery in this room. As you can see, the door on the left will also give us another access to the deck which will be great so that we don’t have to carry food to and from the grill through the living room anymore.

Now for some of the finishes. I showed you the salvaged copper and brass marine lights that I picked up at Brimfield for above the kitchen island. I thought I really needed to bring in some more copper to the kitchen so I was considering doing a copper backsplash with a green or blue patina to it. I think it would have looked nice, but I was nervous about having it be too shiny. The natural choice would have been white or marble subway tile because that’s what everyone seems to do, and while I love the look, I wanted to do something different. Then I spotted this basketweave tile in white and cobalt on One Kings Lane and all other ideas flew out the door! The dining room is navy blue and while I’m planning on painting the kitchen walls green, there will definitely be accents of navy throughout. And I think this backsplash will keep the space looking light and bright which is what I really want for it.

After much debate I also picked out this coral chandelier from Ballard Designs for over the kitchen table which is going to be in the back right corner with a built-in banquette.

And I’m hoping that these blue grasscloth chandelier shades, also from Ballard Designs, are going to be the perfect fit. I haven’t made a final selection on fabric for the banquette and curtains yet, but I think I’ve found the one I want. Stay tuned.

I also ordered these limeade tabouret stacking chairs from Overstock.com. I think they’ll add a nice pop of color!

And while I love the Riviera bar stools from Serena & Lily, I decided to go for the blue tabouret counter stools to go with the limeade tabouret chairs. And yes, the fact that I was able to get four chairs and four stools for under $400 played a major role in making that decision.

We were planning on using our same cabinets because they are mostly in good condition, but we did need to get two new cabinets for the kitchen island, and now because we’re only going to have a few others, I think we will probably just get all new. Whatever we get will be the IKEA Lidingo collection. There are a few other things that I think I’ve finalized, but I haven’t pulled the trigger to purchase them yet so I’ll wait to share those. In the meantime, I’ll be over here in constructionland.