Mrs R Great Room and Kitchen part 2

We started Mrs R's Great Room/Kitchen design yesterday.

To continue with our design ....the plantation shutters have been ordered and the entire space has been spruced up with new bright and light colors on the ceiling, wall, trim and doors.


I dissected the Great Room/Kitchen area into sections. For the kitchen I sat down with Mrs R and pinpointed the design features she wanted to change or highlight.  We started off with the kitchen island. It is such a stand out in her Kitchen area, especially with the beadboard detail. She took a huge leap of faith and decided to paint out the island.  I knew the trade off would be huge. It would brighten the dark kitchen cabinetry that surrounds it, as well as highlight her gorgeous granite counter tops. The color choice came down to a creamy white or robin egg blue.  She worried that after a few years she would grow tired of the blue and want to change it, but the creamy white would allow her to change any accent color she used in her Kitchen and Great Room space. I recommended she use the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in "Old White". I love using chalk paint because it adheres to almost any surface without prep work or sanding. If you finish it off with the Annie Sloan clear wax it protects the chalk paint from chipping or scratching which makes it perfect for a kitchen island that her kiddos will sit up to with bar stools. Here is a great before and after...

This turned out to be a labor of love. After you apply the wax you have to buff it until it gives a matte like shine. Poor Mrs R's arm...it almost fell off, but the island looks A-MAZ-ING!! Now Mrs R is totally buff. HAHAHA!  She actually loves the look of her island and is glad she took the leap of faith. 

Next we focused on updating the lighting in the kitchen and dining. Nothing updates a space like lighting, especially since the pendant lights that hung over the island and the dining room fixture were a light shade of brown. Here is a before of the pendant lights and dining fixture.

Mrs R chose a chandelier for over the dining room and clear glass pendants for over the kitchen island. Both are from Pottery Barn.

found here

found here

They look awesome!!

 Next we tackled the bar stools. Being conscience of the budget, we found a fun yellow fabric and recovered the current ones she had. We used outdoor fabric and scotch guarded it so that the fabric would hold up to her 4 children. This was a great way to bring in a pop of the yellow color that she wanted without having it take over the color scheme.

The kitchen was then finished off with some accessories on top of the cabinets and on the window sill. The accessories we used were purchased from Home Goods, Hobby Lobby, and Marhsalls.

Tomorrows post will include her new dining area as well as the family room!