kitchen diaries - project 1

We built our house 6 years ago (yikes, I can't believe its been that long) with minimal upgrades.  The kitchen was where we did spend a little by adding granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.  The cabinets and flooring however, were builder grade basic.  We did this with every intention of "finishing" it ourselves to make it exactly what we wanted.  Ben and I make a great team because I'm the "designer" and he's the "doer".  We speak the same DIY language; thats what you get after 14 years together.  I can sketch out a picture that a normal person wouldn't have a clue what to do with, and he makes it a reality.

Ultimately we new we wanted a bright and fresh kitchen. The first project we tackled was the backsplash.  The hardest part of this was deciding on a material that was functional for us, looked nice and was affordable.  When you see the finished product you are going to think, "what was so hard about picking that out?"  It's really simple and neutral but it took me a long time to come to that decision.  We played around with colored glass mosaic tile, we contemplated matching our granite slab with granite tiles.  We even toyed around with doing a faux stainless look with aluminum tile.  None of those really fit our style.  We finally landed on a travertine subway tile and a creamy beige. It couldn't be more perfect.  It goes with everything, it's timeless and it's really easy to clean.

 As you can see, builder grade blah cabinets and bare walls

 I thought Ben was going to lose his mind cutting around all those light switches an outlets but he got it perfect!

Just a simple update and the kitchen already looks so much better.  

It's fun for me to look back at these pictures and see how far we've come.  We started redoing our kitchen 3 years ago.......... it's still not done ;)

Next week - cabinet refacing.  Stay tuned!