I love a banquette. It gives me all the cozy feels — like sipping coffee in the corner booth of an old diner and having an intimate conversation. In our last home, we added a banquette not just for the coziness factor but primarily to […]

Recently, I finished a makeover of a college apartment living room shared by my daughter, Elizabeth, and her four roommates. I was a participant in the One Room Challenge and if you’d like to read about it here is the link to the reveal post: […]

Oh my goodness, I am smitten with how good this little butcher block island/table and stools turned out!   In my haste, I didn’t take any before photos.  The butcher block  counter height table was found at a garage sale.  Probably dating to the early […]

In Part I, I shared different style sink skirts paired with different style sinks and different ways to install a skirt sink from Velcro, to a tension rod to an outside mounted curtain rod. Ultimately, I decided on a pinch pleated skirt because I like […]

I’ve always admired sink skirts.  I like the way they soften the hard edges of all the cabinetry and provide an opportunity to add a pop of color to the kitchen. Depending on the style and fabric, a sink skirt can work in almost any […]

When we did the beach house kitchen makeover, I originally had planned to use the Ikea Groland  freestanding island.  The kitchen needed an additional work surface and I liked the industrial vibe of this piece. But along the way, I realized that this modest kitchen […]

I’ve been working on a color palette and design plan for the beach house kitchen makeover.  The exterior of the house is now gray and blue so  we want to bring some of the outside color in by doing a mix of blues in this […]

If you missed my other posts about my Ikea kitchen, you can read them here: Ikea Kitchen Part I Ikea Kitchen Part II Subway Tile Backsplash In those posts I shared how we had to trim the budget on building our new house because  the […]

When we were planning our new kitchen, one element  I thought I was sure about was classic white subway tile for the backsplash.  But when my husband and I scanned the tile options at Lowe’s, we were intrigued by these concrete beveled edge subway tiles: […]

In a previous post I shared how we used Ikea cabinets in our new home  in order to keep costs down.  When I was planning this kitchen and looking at pictures on Pinterest and in magazines, those that were outfitted in head to toe Ikea often […]