Lately we find ourselves browsing the web for some interior design inspiration at night, bookmarking different tile companies, vintage shops, and etsy finds. It’s something we enjoy doing when we have a little down time. We often think about who the original owners of this house were and what the street looked like. While watching Miracle on 34th Street on Christmas morning, we had a good chuckle with each other…our house was built 17 years before that movie was made. Just a little crazy. 😉 We love it though. The idea of so many families here, parties, and love…hopefully. Who knows?! There can be some crazy stories about this place too for all we know, but the idea of making this house our own, a safe haven, a comforting little place for us to retreat to after a long day, makes us so happy.

I kind of panicked a bit going through some websites and even found myself rethinking everything after watching a vlog about someone buying a house and renovating basically every room, knocking everything down to the studs. We’re trying to be patient with this place. It is our home…a home we intend to be in for many years to come. We fell in love with this house because it has so much old charm and character…the original creeky hard woods, 1930s door knobs, and fireplace kind of make my heart skip a beat. However, the quirky things I loved about it and wanted to keep, with doing a few updates, I’m beginning to question. We didn’t buy a fixer-upper and we didn’t buy a new build, but suddenly I find myself freaking out the same way I did around our wedding, with invitation choices, dinner and charger plate options (c’mon who really cares what charger plate you choose?!), the list goes on. I love interior design just as much as the next HGTV addict, but is it really practical to go in and redo everything right away? We want to take our time with it and see how everything feels after living with it for a while.

We did set a few goals for ourselves with the house. When the time is right we’re going to tackle the kitchen as the first big project. This is what we’re thinking…

Ceiling – So we wanted to wait until we redid the whole kitchen to take these dark tiles down, but over the weekend we had a friend who flips homes come over and walk through the space with us. After chatting a bit about our ideas, we were inspired to just get started and at least see what was hiding under those dark tiles. Thankfully its just plaster and we can repaint and patch a few places where the tiles took off some of the paint, but man oh man we were surprised. The tiles were plastic and the “crown molding” was styrofoam. Yes, styrofoam…styrofoam painted black. Haha! We were a little angry at first, because the house was marketed with crown molding and that was supposed to add to the “value of the home”, but after ripping it all down and seeing what a bright fresh canvas we now have, we didn’t mind too much. To the previous owner’s defense, it was a pretty damn good DIY project they did.

Replace counter tops – The dark granite is beautiful and we’re on the fence about this one, but we kind of have our hearts set on something lighter and brighter

In the picture above you could see the blinds removed on the windows, right before we got them painted. The white frames make such a difference in this room…it’s ridiculous how happy a little white paint made us yesterday. You may not be able to tell from this photo, but the kitchen can get pretty dark because of the pergola right off of the kitchen in the yard. We have a lot of greenery in the yard, which was such a selling point for us, but it creates a lot of shade blocking light from the kitchen.
We’ve thought about removing the pergola, but come summer we have a feeling we’re going to be pretty thankful for that shade around here. 🙂

Possibly reconfigure/replace cabinets — we’re thinking about adding some open shelving in a few areas. We’ve invested in some pretty dinnerware over the years and would love to keep them on display along with our everyday pieces. We’ve been going back and forth between brass and black hardware, but think black may be winning us over.  It has a cottage/farmhouse feel to it that we love, while still being clean and minimal. We may keep the small knobs on the uppers and move them to the lower cabinets.

That’s about where we’re at right now with the space. It’s been a lot of brainstorming and planning. We’d rather live with the little things we’re not too keen on for now, than make small changes, just to completely renovate it in a few months. Here’s some kitchens we’re loving from Pinterest. Follow along with us to see more of the direction we’re going in with the house, here.

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