Kitchen Hardware Installed!

A few months back I shared our mini dream kitchen reveal, at the time I shared our kitchen was missing one important ingredient to make it feel finished....hardware. When I shared our kitchen after, we were still in the processing of deciding our hardware. All Pulls? Pulls & Knobs? Matte or Shiny? Black? After ordering a few samples, we decided for our kitchen we preferred a mixture of knobs and pulls in pewter. Over the weekend we finally installed our hardware! Here's a reminder of how our kitchen looked like before adding our hardware.







Lets go back even further to my kitchen circa 2009, how our kitchen looked when we purchased our home. In June 2012 we started the process of re-doing our kitchen, we installed new counter tops, stainless steal sink and bought a new oven & faucet. Then a few weeks later our home was involved in a house fire [read more here] During the rebuilding process, I spent a lot of time thinking about our kitchen layout and changed the layout from a L Shape to a U Shape along with removing a coat closet that was taking up valuable square feet real estate in our kitchen & bathroom, read more about the layout changes here



Our kitchen has undergone a huge transformation, and I'm so happy with how it looks now. I love all the storage and cabinet space. For our cabinet hardware we decided to go with sleek pulls and simple knobs. A winning combination for classic meets modern kitchen [classic cabinet door styles, classic subway tile made modern with it extended all the way to the ceiling, modern 'floating' shelves and more touches] Opening our cabinets doors is so much easier now, and no more finger prints! Seriously I must have gone though 1-2 paper towel rolls a week in wiping away food & dirt smudges left behind, from my house full of men, but no more! We now can open our cabinet doors and drawers like grownups. It's funny I've caught myself a few times opening the doors the 'old way' and forgetting we have hardware installed lol. Here's our kitchen now. 



We purchased the hardware from Lowes, the pulls are from Residential Essentials we bought the pulls online and purchased the knobs in the store. The pulls are 5inch center pulls, which were too large for our hardware cabinet template (boo!)  The installation start out bumpy, with Hasani and I irritated after realizing the template we had was too small, and having a mini panic attack not wanting to jack up our pretty new cabinets. So I ended up making a template out of parchment paper and using that as our guide. Of course later that night we were at Shovanda's house and I asked when how Naomi and her installed theirs, they used a template from Ikea! Banging my head on the table as I type this! lol So if your reading this and have hardware to 
install save your save frustration and a few curse words and make a trip to Ikea! Lesson learned. 



Our corner cabinets on either side of our stove, our L shape twin cabinets,that's why there's only one knob on those cabinets. 



For the large large drawers that reside under our 'floating' shelves we decided to use two sets of pulls on each drawer and also liked how the pulls looked inside our panel drawers verses on on top of the panel. 






Another new addition to my kitchen is our utensil holder, I've been looking for a simple white utensil holder for months. One would think these days with all the pretty white dishes out there they would be a dime a dozen but nope. I searched Target, World Market and Sur la Table and a few other locations with no luck. I finally found one I loved at Crate & Barrel. I also recently added a working vintage kitchen scale from the 1950's, I found this little treasure on Etsy



I hope you enjoyed seeing our pretty kitchen with hardware!! It feels so good to be a grownup and open my cabinets like a normal person, lol. Up next in my kitchen, I'm planning on bringing in some color roman shades. I plan on customizing basic roman shades, with fabric just I like I did for Avery's bedroom. But first I'll be tackling the our crazy spice jars, dry goods storage and getting the inside our our cabinets organized. 

Have any projects in your kitchen also taken you months to complete? 

Looking Forward to 2014

Yesterday I shared my favorite blog posts from 2013 month by month. Today i'm thinking about 2014 and what's ahead for this year. I'm not much a resolution person, but becoming more of a goal setter. Click here to read my goal list from 2013, on the personal side and home goals I did pretty good....of course some things didn't happen so they'll be rolling into 2014 :) My personal theme this year is organizing, not just our belonging and our house, but also my time. Time is precious and I know that keeping myself organized and living with intention will allow me to focus my time on doing what I truly love: creating, decorating, exploring in the kitchen, drawing & painting....and of course blogging. 


Be So Good Print via Etsy store The Motivated Type 

Personal Goals 2014

Continue drinking lots and lots of water
Let go of self doubt 
Follow my heart, and just go for it! 
Host a Cocktail Party or Two?
Attend a live music concerts (seeing one in Feb)
Gain more confidence using larger power tools: miter saw / wet saw (pretty much all saws)
Invest in myself: take a photography class 
Throw a Early Spring Housewarming! 
Have a Girlfriends Brunch this year 
Cook with my kids
Learn More Sewing Skills
Make things more from Scratch: Breads, Pizza Dough, Pancakes etc 
Invest in myself and my personal time to create: draw / paint / read & write more
Have individual mom time for Avery & Tabari: Movie dates, dinner dates and playing 

Home Goals 

Fill Our home with things we only absolutely LOVE 
Create an Organized Mudroom & Laundry Room
Print Pictures out and Enjoy them!
Park My SUV in the Garage 
Organize our kitchen cabinets from top to bottom 
Create a creative and fun bedroom for both my boys
Make our bedroom a relaxing retreat
Make a stunning master closet space 
Make our Living & Dining areas feel warm and cozy 
Install Crown Molding throughout our home - even in the laundry / mudroom 
Plant a Garden an small Vegetable & Herb Garden 
& Much More

Do you have a personal theme for 2014?