Kitchen Update – Jewelry

I’m always surprised by how much time passes between my kitchen updates. OOPSY! I’m documenting everything in real-time in my Instagram Stories, so if you wanna be a part of that, go follow me @RealityDaydream!

This is where we left you last time. (or click here to catch up on the whole kitchen saga!) We had recently gotten the cabinets and large appliances in place, which was SUCH a huge milestone. I still get a little choked up when I think about the first time I turned the water on in my actual kitchen sink.

Having a functioning kitchen is SUCH a dream come true, after living without a kitchen for 9 months. Normal-sized appliances? Running water? Surface area to prepare meals? LIFESAVER.

Speaking of surface area, check out our kitchen now compared to the previous kitchen… from the same angle! (keep in mind that this isn’t a true before/after since we completely ripped off the existing kitchen and added on a larger one)

Since I know at least one of you will ask, the stools are from Wayfair! They aren’t real leather, but are soft and supple like leather. And the clean up SO EASILY. As in, Cypress spilled a whole jar of salsa in her lap, and it wiped right off the stool like magic.

You might have noticed in the above picture that we got our floating corner shelf up! I still need to figure out exactly how I’m going to style it, but I love that it adds character to the cabinets, and gives a tiny element of ‘open shelving.

There are a lot of design decisions we had to make blindly… before we even had walls in our kitchen. I managed to decide on cabinets, colors, lighting, backsplash, and appliances without being able to see the room. But there are some things I wanted to wait and be able to stand back and see what the space still ‘needs’. That’s how the stools came about. And that’s also how we decided on hardware!

WHO KNEW there were different shades of gold? Ok, I think we all knew that. But I never realized how much of a difference it would really make. We were so honored to partner with Schaub for our cabinet pulls. And we originally planned on using pulls from their Fonce collection. But it turned out the gold was just too ‘bright’… if you know what I mean? It’s the one on bottom in the picture below.

We even toyed with doing a matte black pull, which looked AWESOME on the maple cabinets, but not so awesome on the navy island. In the end, we decided to go with the warmer gold of the Heathrow collection, and we are SO IN LOVE with it! I’m so glad I didn’t settle for something that wasn’t quite right. Sometimes waiting and sleeping on it allows you to decide that waiting will be worth it.

And waiting wasn’t too bad, because a couple of brilliant Instagram friends gave us a tip to use wide painters tape to make tabs on the cabinet doors and drawers to make them easier in the meantime. SO SMART!

Nick made a highly complicated ‘jig’ to help us install the hardware perfectly. Yes, I know you can buy jigs for this type of thing, but then where would the fun be in that?

I have to admit, once the jig was made, the hardware went up beautifully. And this hardware is SO BEAUTIFUL.

Something about adding JUST THE RIGHT HARDWARE really makes the room. You know? It feels like jewelry for the kitchen. Here’s a pic minus the child and giant dog so you can really appreciate the hardware. I even photoshopped out the chocolate chip on the floor so you wouldn’t be distracted.

I’m going to end this post here, because this post is getting lonnnng. But SPOILER ALERT… the backsplash is up and it’s soooooo good. I’m going to share another kitchen update soon, so check back!

Or you can follow me on Instagram to always be up to date!

Bethany