My Parent's Kitchen.

As a part of our massive family home overhaul, my parents completely gutted the kitchen and moved it to another spot in the house. This was the first kitchen I designed, and I wanted it to be perfect because my mom has tolerated our small, sad kitchen for the last 17 years. We knew we wanted something light and timeless, so I began by collecting images of beautiful white kitchens, and sketched out some rough plans on IKEA's software to play with different layouts. I am obsessed space planning, so I considered every possible configuration to ensure that it was as functional and practical as possible. I then took those plans to a kitchen designer at Home Depot and she worked with me for hours to hash out every miniscule detail from cabinet dimensions,to appliance specifications, to drawer pulls and handles.


This is where we planned to build the new kitchen. The door goes into the new garage, and the window looks onto our side yard.


As a last minute decision, we decided against white cabinets because we thought they might be a little too ordinary. The cabinets are Thomasville in a color called Dover. It's a soft, warm, pale gray.


Ezekile and Diego painstakingly installed them with surgical precision.




Drumroll please.........................


Brand new cabinets! Brand new appliances! Brand new everything!




I LOVE these cabinets. Nice clean lines, but just enough detail to appease my mother who loves ornate, fancy things.


I didn't have time to pick out a new microwave, but our 1980 microwave just happened to fit perfectly into the compartment in the island. It's amazing that it still works. It's been around for almost 30 years, and for the last 3 months, we put it outside and it got rained on repeatedly. They definitely don't build appliances like they used to.


I chose a dark truffle colored quartz for the counter top around the perimeter and a subtly speckled quartz for the island. The island counter is extra thick for that "butcher block" look.


The sink and faucet are from Overstock.com. They were both really inexpensive, but really great quality. After looking through thousands of backsplash options, we opted for something very traditional. It's a taupe, crackled subway tile with trim and rosettes.


The floors are slightly shimmery porcelain with contrasting grain laid in a checkerboard pattern.


We still need to install 3 small pendant lights above the island, but aside from that, my mom's dream kitchen is complete!