Our Farmhouse Inspired Kitchen

When we moved into our house, the kitchen looked like this: 

The walls were maroon on top, white below the chair rail. White laminate counters, white cabinets, black appliances (no refrigerator) and a chocolate brown island. The sink was a shallow double stainless steel sink with a wobbly faucet. And it was missing a drawer and two cabinet doors. We knew from the beginning that we would be immediately upgrading this room. 

With a few minor exceptions, here is what the kitchen looks like post reno:

The first thing I did was choose my color scheme. Our house is dark. There are windows, but because of all of the oak trees we have outside, there isn't a lot of natural light coming in. I chose a pretty light blue for the walls, above and below the chair rail. 

This is the view of the main wall extending from the eating area on the other side of the kitchen. 

I created two different zones in the kitchen with the art on the walls. The plates are hanging over the buffet, anchoring the eating area. The art grouping on the other side of the kitchen is anchoring that portion of the kitchen. 

This wall is huge and we didn't have a lot of money in the budget for artwork. I purchased this book from Amazon for around $15. The pages are perforated so you can pull them out and hang them. I hung them in Ribba frames from Ikea that we already had. 

You cannot have a farmhouse inspired kitchen without a farmhouse sink. Warning: If you buy a farmhouse sink for existing kitchen cabinets, you will have to modify your cabinets. We had to cut into the top portion of the cabinets and create a "shelf" for the sink to sit on. The sink is very heavy, so it has to be braced properly. We learned how to do it with Youtube videos and we had a carpenter friend help. 

I'm a huge fan of tuxedo cabinets and am very happy with how ours turned out. The gray on the bottom has a lot of blue in it and the white on the top brings the light in that we desperately need.

I wanted my island to stand out. We originally wanted to do butcher block counters on the island, but it was so much easier to go with the granite, plus we loved how pretty it was. I chose to do fun knobs on the island instead. 

Keurigs definitely don't look "farmhouse", but throw it on a tray with a distressed mason jar for kcups and it definitely helps. :) 

Most farmhouse kitchens have stainless steel appliances, but we chose slate. You don't see slate very often, so we liked the uniqueness of it. Also, it's smudge proof and still boasts stainless steel in the handles. We also got a stainless steel hood. The original kitchen had an over the range microwave, but it was far too low, so we replaced it with a hood and bought a countertop microwave. 

I added some touches from our families in our kitchen as well. These recipes are from Jonathan's late grandmother and the tea pitcher holding my wooden utensils is my late grandmother's. 

In my opinion, a room in your house is never finished. There is always room for improvement and changing a space keeps it fresh. In the long run, we do plan to change the floors, add a subway tile backsplash and there will of course be more homey touches added. I also want to recover the barstools with a fun fabric. 

I haven't added any pictures of our kitchen table because I still haven't styled the top of it or assembled the bench that we bought for extra seating. I'll add those photos as more work gets completed. Click here to see how I styled our buffet to reflect the farmhouse style.

Thank you for reading! Let me know in the comments what you think! Have you recently upgraded your kitchen? It's sooo stressful, but totally worth it!