Second impulse purchase was a perfectly functional, and good looking cabinet mount vent hood. Stainless steel, nice brand, perfect – However, I shouldn’t have purchased a vent hood a year in advance because I’m not great at sticking to plans, and we ended up changing everything when we took out that cabinetry. Precisely why I love going this alone. No one to blame but me and I can live with that. Here is it’s Craigslist mug shot.

Moving on… I put the old vent hood on Craigslist and got a pretty decent amount. It paid for half of the vent hood I bought the week after on ebay. A stunning chimney-style, stainless steel vent hood.

Long story about it being dented, almost sending it back and then randomly getting a 2nd one in the mail, but all-in-all it worked out beautifully. $319 With free shipping. In this moment, I was a small winner. More about not being a winner with my tile grout coming soon.

All my kitchen lighting dreams came true when FedEx dropped off my new fixture last week. The glass is gorgeous – well worth the not-on-sale price.

I debated whether 12″ was too wide for the space, however it’s pretty expensive to send it back so  now maybe I like it just fine! That dangling yellow wire is where it’s going to live.

Now what to do with the center fixture… I have always known that the fan needed to go, but now I’m considering replacing it with another fan only because “function” is  enjoying a bit of a resurgence in my life.  I’ve also considered a “15 of the exact same fixture in the center of the kitchen.

Or the inner artist in me wants to quiet the flipper and get a white washed antler chandelier. Yes, an antler chandelier. It will pass.

Don’t worry Davis family, Lucy is in good hands.

And if you were wondering, I did not lay it myself. I actually assisted our friend Juan, who did an awesome job for us! If you’re in the Austin area and need a very skilled handyman, I will happily pass his information along. We have crown molding and a few trim pieces to look at after the holidays.

I knew that I wanted a chair rail  at the top rather than an eased cap, however when I found them at Lowe’s I was concerned that they were going to look out of place – too obvious when next to the modern tile and counter top. Seeing them up now, I think they look great. They make the kitchen  feel polished. They can stay for now.

In just a few hours I will be mixing the grout. I’m hoping the color looks light enough. I wanted something that wouldn’t look horrible if it got dirty, but I really wanted white. I settled for a light gray that I picked up from Travis tile off Airport. It’s what we have in the bathroom and I think it will be a nice compromise between white and not-white.

Feeling very thankful this holiday season for the opportunity to renovate our kitchen. I complain, but I really do love what we’re doing and the people we’ve met along the way.  More updates to come.

I can really see the kitchen coming together. We’re definitely going to rely a lot on rug/accents/flowers to warm the space up. We’re currently very commercial, slightly industrial right now. However I threw down a sisal accent rug and it made the biggest difference. I’m looking forward to purchasing a bushel of Dusty Miller or a few hydrangeas.

We actually used the SimpleMat I talked about last month. It was an experience. I’d say that bashing out the existing tile and putting up new drywall would have probably been easier, unfortunately. The SimpleMat was cool because it went down fairly easy and saved us another dusty mess. However, once the tile was put down it was nearly impossible to move. So place your tiles wisely. And at $25 for 10 square feet, it was slightly pricey.

I love tile and I love white. I love white tile. I hope all those potential home buyers out there love it too.

Enjoy the chaos.

We have a few wreaths up on the new doors and one hanging on our guest bedroom.

I give holiday decorations a bad rap because of their usually large size and glitz. They make my space feel smaller and overwhelm me. This year I have been very selective about what is up and a I tend to go with smaller, subtle items that could even stay up all year… just ignore the huge tree in the middle of the room.

We even got a sweet little tree. Could have saved a few pennies by going to Home Depot, but it was an experience going out to the lot and picking our little one out.

Enjoy the season!

The plan still stands to tile up to the ceiling and around the window.  I’m actually going to take a stab at putting in the drywall this time. And when I say put up drywall, I mean help my skilled drywall-technician put up drywall. It’s one thing to screw in the drywall but it’s another to do all the measurements for the cutouts. I’m going to hopefully cut down on the labor time by being his assistant, plus I’ll learn good cutting tips and if I’m feeling brave the next time… then maybe I’ll consider doing it myself

Below are a few pictures from today’s work.  I’ll spare you the wasp nests we found between the studs.

Before:

After:

Before:

Just ignore that small strip of tile under the window… After:

One last shot and the home for our range, before:

After:

I forgot to take a before, but here is a door knob in our house that hasn’t been updated yet:

Here is the hardware now – needs another spray, but I think it’s going to look nice once I clean it up:

Cheap and fun. May end up relacing them, but for now they match the rest of the house.