THE KITCHEN RENOVATION DIARY & MOODBOARD

I’m excited to bring a little bit of interior goodness to the blog today with a mini run through of our kitchen renovation last year. It was such an exciting process and I could not be happier with how everything turned out. It was surprisingly not stressful in any way, every process went smoothly, despite the pandemic and it took only a month from starting the work until completion... amazing right!

I’d never really embarked on anything quite like this before.
I’d redone the bathroom in our old place (hello dreamy pink herringbone tiles😍 I miss you) but that wasn’t changing too much of the actual space, as it was simply too small, more of a facelift so to speak.
The kitchen in our home now however is massive, it’s the heart of the house and my absolute favourite thing about the house. It’s a really large kitchen that we always knew we would re-do when we first moved in as it wasn't really to our taste and it was a little outdated (see before images below), we just wanted to get married first...

One year, a global pandemic, a rescheduled wedding and a positive pregnancy test later we thought sod it, let’s just bloody do it! So we used some of our wedding savings to create our dream kitchen instead.
The fact we had a little one on the way and had spent so much time in the kitchen during lockdown only made our decision to create a real family kitchen all the more solid.

So, I started mood boarding, my fave part of any project. There’s something about making a moodboard that is really bloody good for my soul. It’s a form of creativity that I truly adore embarking on and would urge you all to give it a go for any form of creative project you have planned. I started with a Pinterest board and a Saved board on Instagram before then properly separating any themes and reoccurrences that was evident through the imagery I liked. Once I’d found them I’d check them over with Gee to make sure he was on board and a moodboard was created that you can see above.

We knew we wanted a kitchen that would last 10-20 years, a real family style kitchen that would grow with us. We wanted to invest wisely on timeless colours and tiling etc so as not to get bored in just three years time...

I know what I’m like.

I always thought I’d have a really wacky kitchen with checkered floors, multicoloured subway tiles and maybe even some wallpaper thrown in for good measure; but it’s only when you realise how damn expensive kitchens are that you start to think a little more long term, or at least that’s how it went down for me.

We selected a deep green shade with brass handles as we’re quite the suckers for green and loved how it flowed with the rest of our plans for the downstairs of our home. The colour of the cupboards is one of those colours that looks different in different lights which is something I really like about it. One moment it’s green then it’s teal, then blue and then grey, it’s a fascinating colour and one that lends itself beautifully to a whole host of different wall colours, something I can imagine us mixing up over the years and something that was important for me to foresee, again as I know myself and my love for change so well...

To kick things off we decided to warm up the “brilliant white” that was already on the walls. I wanted to keep it white (for now) but with some warmth thrown in as brilliant white is probably my least favourite of the white family.
I enlisted the help of Lick to help me select the perfect white for the space with White 03- a warm toned white with a sprinkling of yellow to keep things cosy and my goodness the difference it’s made is phenomenal. Who knew there was such a difference between shades of white eh!

To keep things fun I thought we’d make a feature of the lovely doors that open up onto our Juliette balcony (in the spring time only of course) it took some convincing but George finally agreed and I selected Lick Green 08 to take on the job. And would you just look at how magic it looks. I knew the space could take something a little bit different and fun and I’ve always loved the lines within the doors and the windows so making more of a feature of it felt really right for us and thankfully George and everyone else agrees!
I’m thinking yellow next time, or maybe orange, or even a dark shade like black, the possibilities for those babies are endless and a spot we can really have some fun with over the years.

Now for the floor tiles, they were down to George as he was targeted on Instagram for the concrete tiles after we spent the best part of a weekend researching polished concrete flooring. Having decided to rule that out due to the TWO WEEK DRYING TIME 😅 concrete tiles were the next best thing or in my opinion now I would say the absolute best thing!!!

My biggest dislike of the old kitchen was the small cream floor tiles. They were dull, dated, uninspiring and a NIGHTMARE to keep clean. You’d have just hoovered and mopped them and moments later they would be filthy again, particularly having two dark haired doggies around, those tiles were the bane of my life.

So it was an important priority that we found something that was better at disguising things like hair and crumbs whilst also being child friendly i.e not slippery. I’m a clean freak as it is, I didn’t need something like white tiles and black dachshund hair to take me over the edge...
Thankfully, the concrete tiles are sheer perfection, really you wouldn’t need to hoover or mop any more than once a week as they hide a multitude of sins! They’re honestly one of my fave parts of the space, George did SO good!

Other highlights of the space are of course the sink, my absolute dream double Belfast sink and brass faucet situation, it just feels so luxe! I adore our island, an L shape that we decided was totally essential for our home, our plan to have a large family and with how often we like to host our friends and family (in normal times of course)
The space before we made our mark was so open and in my opinion wasted, the L Shape island has strangely made the room feel bigger whilst also creating a really cosy and homely feel perfect for hosting.

As you can see we decided to rip out some of the upper cabinets and cupboards, we simply didn’t need them as we added storage to the island and then a little pantry around the fridge too which isn’t pictured but trust me, it is just beautiful!

Instead where the brown cupboards once lived we’ve installed our neon, one of the best things we have ever, ever, ever bought. We had it commissioned by Optimum Neon when we lived in our old place with the lyrics from one of our songs and using my own handwriting. The orange neon tubing was the inspiration around other elements of the space including the rug and some of the styling bits throughout the open shelving.

Speaking of the shelving, I’m so in love with these shelves. Purchased from a seller on Etsy they’re made from reclaimed wood and they’re just so damn gorgeous! With one above the sink and one above the cooker it gives the space that country kitchen touch that both George and I love so much.

That was really the inspiration behind the kitchen; we wanted it to feel like a modern country kitchen with elements of city centre living thrown into the mix- mixing our two lives perfectly. George’s country roots and me being a city girl and I think we’ve mastered it spectacularly.

In the interest of not oversharing that is it for our little kitchen renovation diary, I really hope you enjoyed hearing more about the space and how we got the kitchen of our dreams. Please let me know if you’d like any further info on the renovation and the process we went through or you have any questions about anything at all, I am all ears 🙂
I loved every minute of this process and LOVE chatting about it so let me know if you have a question that I failed to answer 🙂
Thank you for reading.

x M