Elsie’s Kitchen Tour (Before & After)

Hi, friends! It feels so good to finally be sharing my kitchen tour with you. It has truly been one of my favorite renovation projects ever!

I know it might feel like you’ve already seen this tour because it’s been photographed for domino and shared throughout its many phases these past (almost) two years. That said, this room got stuck in the 90-percent-done purgatory for over a year! Those pesky little unfinished details were driving me crazy, so finally we finished every last bit of it, and today I can FINALLY call this room “completed”.

Now, I want to share every little detail of our process with you. But first, a walk down memory lane! Here are our before and after pics! You can see ALL the before pics here.

When we first viewed this home, we fell in love with it immediately. I never doubted that this could be our dream kitchen. But I also had no illusions that it would be as simple as a little paint job… I knew it was going to be a fairly major renovation. I had my heart set on open upper cabinets and a light, bright kitchen that we could use and love for years to come.

Here’s our kitchen today (!!!) It’s come a long way, and we spend SO much time in here, it feels more than worth it!

Here’s another comparison shot.

After deciding to go with open shelves on the top and swapping out the counter top range for a stove, it became obvious to us that we might as well get all new cabinets. We chose an affordable option from a local cabinet store. The open shelves were custom built for our space… and don’t forget it once looked like this. Haha!

The gold hardware is one of the first things we picked out for the house. It’s from Rejuvenation.

Our light is from Lucent Lightshop. I discovered them through Little Green Notebook and have used their fixtures all throughout our home. The theme of brass fixtures really ties the spaces together.

We went with quartz countertops. I feel like I’ve talked a lot about these. But just in case you haven’t heard—quartz is AMAZING. It’s pretty, but more importantly, it’s incredibly durable. I highly recommend it for kitchen counters (and anything high traffic really). And the other cool thing about quartz is that they are making new patterns every year. I cannot WAIT for you to see the pattern Laura used in her kitchen.

Anyway! The color we chose was more grey than I thought it would be from the samples. But in the end, I think it’s a good contrast. I wouldn’t have intentionally chosen grey, but I don’t hate it.

And, honestly, home renovations are a series of compromises. It’s impossible for everything to turn out just like your imagination. Some things are good surprises, some not as good. But in the end, all that matters is that you finish the renovation and LIVE YOUR LIFE in your home.

We also chose a classic subway tile laid in a straight herringbone pattern for our backsplash, and we chose to take the backsplash all the way up to the ceiling. I love the seamless feel of it! We originally went with gray grout, but after some time I couldn’t live with some visible imperfections, so we recolored the entire backsplash with a miracle grout pen (It really IS a miracle).

This area of the kitchen is both functional and pretty. I love it when it can be both! I use ingredients and dishes from these shelves every single day. I love having organization where everything feels like it has a home. Paint pen organization DIY here. The white milk glass tiki mug as a vase makes me so happy.

I shared all about our recolored appliances here. They were worth every penny and are holding up perfectly. It saved us thousands to cover regular appliances rather than buy colored ones, and they really give the room a more custom look. Before we had the pop of color, I was insecure it looked like “every kitchen on Pinterest”… which isn’t the worst thing ever, but I do value originality. So having something that’s unique to our space has been really cool.

Oh, and you can see the sweetest little fixture up above our sink from Cedar & Moss. It’s white and gold and the perfect small fixture for above a sink.

And that hanging planter is from here (I customized it to be just three planters and used the extra one in another space). I store my Vitamix right between my fridge and my sink. This is perfect because I am currently on a health kick and I use it 3x a day (at least), so it’s very convenient. My lesser used small appliances (food processor, etc…) are stored in lazy susans in the corner cabinets.

I learned so much about organization from The Home Edit and still have almost all of their systems in place to this day… just a little more lived in. We really use our kitchen a LOT (like a lot, a lot). But honestly, I have never once regretted the open shelves. They’re not always perfectly styled. But I’m OK with that. The openness that it creates more than makes up for any exposed clutter.

OK, let’s take a second to talk about the faucet. I get so many questions about it! It’s this Delta faucet. I do love it. It’s very practical, the best faucet I’ve ever had. I embraced mixed metals in our kitchen (it’s almost impossible to go ALL brass in a kitchen, or at least highly un-budget-friendly), so I picked some key pieces like the light fixtures, the faucet and the hardware in brass and let the rest be stainless steel.

I love this pulled back view because you can see the hanging plant we just added between the kitchen and breakfast nook. It really adds an extra something-something and visually separates the two rooms.

Magic Hands print by Jennifer Ament. This little cart holds our coffee and tea stuff. We drink tea every single night (unless it’s a wine night).

All in all, this has been a dream project for me. I never thought I would get to live with such a beautiful kitchen, let alone design one! It has been so incredible to see it go from point a to point b. I’m sure there will be a few small tweaks here and there, but it definitely feels done, and (Gah!) you have no idea how good it feels to say that!

Thank you so much for following along. I am doing my best to list every item here, but if you have any questions, just let me know in the comments. Love you guys! xx -Elsie

If you love a good kitchen makeover, check out…
–Elise’s Open Concept Kitchen Transformation
–Holiday House Kitchen Before & After
–Laura’s Kitchen Tour (Part 2!)

Sources: Gold Hardware/Rejuvenation, Quartz Counter/Stone World, Fixture above sink/Cedar & Moss, Chandelier/Lucent Lightshop, Faucet/The Home Depot, Hanging Planter/Amazon, Espresso Machine/Breville, Tea Kettle/Kate Spade, White Cart/CB2, India Cookbook/Amazon, Towel/Turkish-T.

Related DIY—How I recolored my appliances, Paint pen organization, 10 Organization Tips with The Home Edit.