Hi friends! If you’re a home decor lover than I’ve got a fun blog series for you! I’m excited to share some fun stuff I’ve been working on around my house in the past couple months to give it a much needed home refresh. For a while my husband, Jeff and I have been talking about selling our house and building our dream home. However, due to the crazy cost of custom builds and a lack of available lots in our area we decided to shelf a new build in favor of updating our current house and making it dreamier! 🙂 We had some minor remodeling projects in mind, but I also wanted to brighten up the space with new decor. I’ve learned a lot about interiors in the last couple months so I wanted to share my newly acquired knowledge and before/after pics in a blog series. First up, let’s talk kitchens in my Home Refresh Blog Series: Light & Bright Kitchen!
Kitchen face lift
In the last year or so I’ve been following more and more home decor profiles on Instagram and crushing hard on all these light bright homes with fun pops of color. I started to realize my decor was really dark with our rich taupe walls, a dark brown leather sectional, mahogany living room tables, black bar stools and kitchen table. So with our decision to stay and refresh our home I wanted to redecorate our main living areas to reflect this new lighter style I was gravitating towards. I also felt like we could do some minor upgrades to give our kitchen a nice little face lift with new pendant and chandelier lighting, an updated back splash, and new cabinet knobs.
Sorry for the poor quality of the following “before” photos, but I completely forgot to take pics of anything before we got started! 🙁 I just wanted you to take note of the original chandelier, pendants, dark table, back splash and cabinet knobs below…
First up, we replaced our grayish mosaic tile back splash with glossy white subway tile with some wavy undulation so it felt a little different than the popular flat/matte subway tiled kitchens. To mix it up I had them do a herringbone design over the stove area for added interest. We had brushed nickle hardware on our cabinet knobs and changed them out to matte black, which tied really nicely with our new bronze and black light pendants and black metal dining room chandelier. Plus it felt very Joanna Gaines / Fixer Upper with her penchant for white spaces with black accents. I love how the kitchen turned out!
I have linked all items under each photo. Some links are affiliate links meaning if you were to purchase an item I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. These are all my selections and opinions are my own.
Light & Bright, ready for summer!
Pendant lighting | Identical Counter stools | Place mats
Black knobs/pulls from Lowe’s | Back splash & lighting install by Alltech
These plates and bowls are a mix of Home Goods and T.J. Maxx. I have a newfound love for melamine dinnerware, which is a hard and smooth ceramic-like plastic that can drop without shattering. Target has really cute Opalhouse melamine options flying off the shelf with individual pieces falling under $3 or sets ranging from $8-12. Perfect for kids and serving bowls and platters for entertaining!
Chandelier | Seat cushions | Rug
Dining table | Dining chairs | Similar wicker chairs | Vases
Still Waters Painting | Buffet table | Lamp | Vase is Home Goods
I plan to get a couple nice hardback cook books to replace what’s there now, and I want to get this natural wood tray for the bottom shelf for added texture. I used the storage area for my white wedding china and it’s the perfect contrast with the black.
If you’re wondering about the Still Waters painting, I love retro pop culture so I fell in love with this 1950’s girl swimming. We are in the midst of installing a swimming pool just outside our kitchen window so I felt like she fit perfectly with the vibe. You’ll see another retro painting in my living room blog that will give you all the vacay feels! 🙂
Don’t get overwhelmed, get help!
Because we wanted to redecorate several spaces in our house I enlisted the help of my talented interior stylist friend, Adrienne of Pickfair to help me. She is a pro at mixing patterns and textures and she really helped me steer clear of matchy matchy furniture sets and showed me how mixing natural wood, wicker, black accents, gold, etc. is the way to go. In fact, I saw on the Today Show today that the stylish textures of the moment are natural color wicker and brass, which you see here and you’ll see in my living room blog next!
I told Adrienne my goal was a lighter and brighter home and she did her thang and put together gorgeous vision boards for each room we wanted to tackle, starting with the kitchen. I love that it was a collaborative effort and she challenged me to try new things. Some items I ordered directly from her vision boards and others I took the inspiration and ordered a similar item. We had so much fun and it was a real education on how to make your home reflect your personal style. I now feel more in sync with my home, if that makes sense?!
Need interior styling help? Check out Adrienne’s website here for more info. She can do all this virtually if you are not local to Indianapolis. You should also follow her on Instagram for some real home decor eye candy!
Vision board by Pickfair
The next blog in this home refresh series will feature our new living room decor and dive more into mixing patterns and textures confidently! What’s your biggest challenge with interior decor? Fear of color? Pattern/texture mixing? I’d love to know in the comments!
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