Kitchen Clean and Quaint.

I am a little eclectic when it comes to my style. I think that is why I love the idea of flipping because its almost like every home has its own character to take and run with.  With the fireplace, giant windows and "secret garden" back yard - this home already felt peaceful and cozy to me. So the finish out was almost like just putting make up on an already pretty face. I was taking what was already existing and enhancing it and drawing attention to its good features.

The kitchen already had clean lines and quaint details. I love clean and quaint. There was an existing huge sink, and a lot of room for improvement. But my favorite part about the kitchen was and still are the windows! One giant window, a door with windows, and a sink window. Although the walls and floors were painted the same shade of navy blue, I could already envision a light, crisp, clean kitchen flooded with  natural light.

Before: Navy blue concrete floors and walls, washer and dryer in the kitchen, old red and white cabinets, rusted white sink, no refrigerator, a water heater in the pantry, and one light fixture that didn't give off much light.

We still have this antique if anyone wants to buy it let me know - as far we know it still works.

The insides of these cabinets were fire engine red, the grout on the white hexagon tiles were pretty nasty

 The washer and dryer were below this window and covering part of it.

                           This was the original pantry with the water heater in the corner.



After: We put in new tile floors, moved the water heater into the attic and put a stackable washer and dryer into the old pantry, installed granite counter tops, new subway tile backsplash, fresh coat of an oil base paint on the cabinets, new hardware, kept the quaint metal detailing under the sink (love that), re-finished our sink, had four can lights installed as well as a single pendant, Kept the same cabinets for the most part but added a cookie sheet slot and took some out to add a dishwasher and bought all new appliances.

 No more washer and dryer and no more navy blue! So natural and bright. I feel like I am in a sanctuary when I am cooking (except for the time the oven caught on fire).

 Brazilian Black granite with black hardware makes my white subway tile and white cabinets look very clean and crisps. I love my butchers block - my parents gave me that as a house warming gift - and it has made this kitchen not only cute, but incredibly functional. Its on wheels to I can wheel it around to the stove when I am chopping food... its awesome!

 Chrome! I love chrome - its just enough pop to keep it clean. I put a chrome sink faucet and light fixture in. My counter tops look a little cluttered...but like I said we live here so its going to look a little lived in :).

We put Sea Salt on the walls (Sherwin Williams) which is in my opinion one of the best paint colors ever created. It has just enough blue/ green for some character, but enough grey to be a neutral.

 I love this little ditty :) - I painted the stool and the wooden frame the same color as the wall. I wanted them to blend it and not carry any weight. This kitchen is not big by any means so to have something heavy and bulky there would make me feel cramped. I am eventually going to get a tall, small table so Wes can set his drink down while he watches me cook. He likes to be in the kitchen with me so he needed a stool. He is so sweet! I love these tea cups they pull in the quaint detailing under the sink.

 This is our washer dryer creative solution. We re-located the water heater and put them in the original pantry. I am more than happy to not have a washer and dryer in my kitchen. They are so quiet and do a great job we are thrilled with this investment. When I close the door I cant hear them at all.

This is my storage solution. Because the closet we had to work with was a little on the narrow side I decided to hang baskets on the wall. Perfect! They hold all my cleaning supplies and laundry detergent no problem.



The Colcord kitchen is one of my favorite parts about the flip. As a newly wed learning to be a great wife I needed an inspiring kitchen. 

**Side note I don't have a big fancy camera - so these pictures are just taken with my iphone. Sorry they aren't the best quality maybe a few flips down the road the blog and the pictures will improve a little :)**

The First of Many: Sanctuary on Colcord Ave.

A few months back Wes and I decided to find a house, or a dump, and renovate it to make it home. Because of my degree, my job (designer for Magnolia Homes), and his job (credit analyst at a bank) we  felt like it was a set up.

Turns out it was a total set up. His bank more than supported us, my job experience in flipping homes, and my degree more than prepped me for this new adventure.

Apprehensions: we were going to get in a million fights over finishes and selections, it wasn't going to be cute at all when we were done, fail, and money would get out of control. After praying through all the apprehensions and acknowledging them as fears we jumped in!

Found our adorable little house while driving around - it was an estate sale and the sweet lady who lived here before us built this home and lived here her whole life! Awesome - just one homeowner before us and raised all of her children here. I love that story. We picked this house because of its bones. It has great features such as: huge windows, chimney in the front, fireplace, hardwood floors (original to the house), incredible blue hexagon tile in the bathroom, and a solid foundation. The owner also replaced the roof not too long ago with a 45 yr. shingle...that is GREAT! She also had recently update the AC unit and the water heater. As soon as I walked in it was a no- brainer!

No one else wanted the home because they had a hard time seeing past the painted blue concrete floors in the kitchen, the washer and dryer in the kitchen, the outdated appliances, the nasty/ musty floral carpets and the stains on the walls. And of course our favorite fix up ... there was no master suite.

Pictures our home before: Kind of reminded me of McDonalds with the yellowish brick and red-ish roof.


I want to bring God into everything I do because then I know for sure it is his design - his idea not mine. His is and always will be WAY BETTER THAN MINE! So I prayed through this whole process - some of you might think that is silly, but I'm dead serious. Anyways I was a little stressed over the paint color because my challenge was picking a color that didn't make the roof look more red. My first thought was a shade of green or grey.. neutral or complimentary ... right?? Well after praying I knew it had to be blue. What I am saying is: it was God's idea for the house to be blue. No matter how hard I tried to justify a different direction it had to be blue. I felt like this home was to be a "sanctuary" a refuge for the next owner (thats why we bought it ... to sell it, but we are currently living here). We will see if that is case we hope to put it on the market soon. But that is my prayer and inspiration word for this home: Sanctuary. Of course lo and behold I found the perfect shade of blue from a local paint shop in town called sanctuary. Before I ever knew - God knew- gosh its sweet to follow Jesus. Anyways like I was saying I had a word for this house and after searching through major paint companies I landed on the perfect color which is called the inspiration word for my house. Coincidence?? - I don't think so ... God. Call me hyper spiritual or whatever you want but I just couldn't believe this, I was so encouraged and affirmed to move forward. It was exactly the confidence I needed to finish the job, and create the perfect blue house on Colcord Avenue.

So we painted the exterior Sanctuary blue and almost the entire interior the perfectly peaceful shade of blue called Sea Salt (sherwin williams color).

Here is the final product of the out side of our home. I plan on posting each room over the next week and the major changes we made...all the before and afters.


The Sanctuary on Colcord:

We actually ended up taking down all the white railings around the front and back porch and put 8" cedar beams instead that we stained to match our new custom shutters. My favorite part is that the roof looks brown with this color - no more Mcdonalds. God knew the perfect color.

We love living here and will definitely be sad when we move into the next project, but we have found a hobby/ job that we LOVE!!!

Remember all of my apprehensions... well here was the final outcome: we worked so well together (only like 3 arguments over layout ideas), Wes handled the finances like a champ and we came in EXACTLY almost to the penny on budget, we are more than happy with the outcome of our home, and we feel like do live in a sanctuary. Concept accomplished.

More to come - room by room transformation!