About.com - April Recap

Well, my first month as the Kitchens Expert for About.com is complete and I survived!! Hallelujah! 8 articles is a lot, but I really enjoyed writing the content and then watching as a few of my articles make it to the AboutHome Home Page! I've been sharing the posts on Twitter, but have held off on posting to my personal Facebook page. 8 articles + 4 blog posts a month would make my Facebook page a little busy with "HEY LOOK WHAT I DID" content so I figured I would just post here once a month to fill you guys in on what all I've been covering over at About.com.

So, for my first month I posted on a slew of different topics starting with....

1.

How to Pick the Perfect White Paint for your Cabinetry
This was the article that made it to the Home Page on AboutHome! 

In this article I wrote about some tips and tricks for picking the best shade of white for your kitchen cabinets. The color white can be tricky, so I thought this was a topic a lot of people could relate to and hopefully use on their white kitchen endeavors! 

2.

Highs & Lows of Dish Storage

One of the biggest design trends I've been seeing lately is the idea of storing everyday dishes down low. In this article I talk about the advantages to this approach in addition to some different ways to incorporate this concept into your own kitchen. 

3.

Plants: A Cheap and Easy Way to Add Pizazz to your Kitchen

Plants are an easy and affordable way to add some personality to your space. In this article I show you various ways to pop a plant or two into your kitchen regardless of the size!

4. 

Custom vs. Semi-Custom vs. Stock Cabinetry

The world of cabinetry can be C O M P L I C A T E D. So many choices, so much to know. In this article I'm breaking down the differences between custom, semi-custom and stock cabinetry. 

5. 

How to Draw Less Attention to Outlets on Your Kitchen Island

Outlets are necessary in a kitchen, no doubt, but more often than not they are slapped right on the side of an island or peninsula with very little thought to the design they may be disrupting. This article is full of ideas that allow outlets to blend in or maybe even disappear into the kitchen. 

6.

How to Integrate the Lucite Trend into Your Kitchen

Lucite is everywhere in interior design,  and I'm all about the trend; I even used lucite hardware in my Luxury Living Show Kitchen. In this article I talk about a few ways to integrate a little lucite in your kitchen!

7. 

Why Quartz?

Quartz, is worth looking into if you are in the countertops market. I'm giving you all of the reasons why in this post!

8.

Junk Drawer Be Gone

Now here's a topic we can all relate to....the dreaded junk drawer. We all have one, so check out these tips for getting your life in order starting with a few tricks for organizing your kitchen drawers!

Well, there you have it - my life on About.com this month! Let me know if you can think of any topics you'd like to see me cover. Anything and everything kitchen is fair game. Just don't ask me to talk about actually cooking in the kitchen because that would be a very very short and sad post and there is a 600 word minimum, folks. :)

Meet My Kitchen - Part 1

So...My house. Remember that project? Yeah, a  LOT has happened since I last updated you. In the midst of final wedding details, the actual wedding, the Luxury Living Show Kitchen and the two weeks in Italy for my honeymoon, the house has be-bopped along and a whole lot of progress has been made. It's officially a home. Not a dust pit, not a construction zone, but a home, our home.

With that being said I am WAY behind on updating you all and if I put all of the updates in one post you may be reading for a few days straight and that just can't be good for your eyes. So, I'm going to break it up a little, starting with the kitchen. WARNING: even within the kitchen itself there are many layers of progress, so this will definitely be My Kitchen part 1.  I could go to part 10, but I'll try to consolidate and hold back my long winded tendencies.

Last time we talked about the kitchen it looked something like this...

It stayed like this for weeks while we worked on other parts of the house and tweaked this space preparing it for it's new cabinetry. We had to paint, add some electrical, slightly rearrange the plumbing, add a gas line for the new range and have some HVAC work done to relocate a floor vent and prepare for the hood that would vent to the outside. You may also remember the addition of the picture frame moulding in the dining room that Brent installed in this post, it too was part of this prep stage for operation new kitchen. All of these tweaks and modifications were necessary, but other than the addition of the moulding and the painting not too much pizazz was added to the space during this period of renovation. So, while we were making progress, it didn't really feel like it, because there was a whole lotta work with no added pretty. It was more like added dust and backaches and then some more dust.

Finally after much sweat, dust and tears (Brent gets really emotional when he is able to successfully wire a new outlet) we found ourselves at the eve of our cabinet installation. We FINALLY got to take up the plastic that had been covering our newly refinished floors and the kitchen looked like this the night before the big install.

As some of you know I'm a designer at Bell Kitchen & Bath Studios and we make custom cabinets. And Thank God we do, because as you can see, and as I have said before this kitchen is small. Of course removing the wall between the dining room and kitchen as well as closing off the random door to the outside significantly increased the opportunity for functionality and really opened up the space, but still the space is small and the design had to be carefully considered (obsessed over) to ensure we made every bit of the space as functional as possible. We schemed and tweaked and literally thought through every single cabinet determining what would be stored inside. I will post a whole cabinet innards post at some point, but for now just know no cabinet in our kitchen just happened. It happened because we deemed it worthy or necessary to take up precious real estate in our small space.

It was D-day. The install team rolled up and got to work.

Our cabinets are from Bell's Studio frameless collection. The cabinets are maple and painted Benjamin Moore's White Dove, OC-17. We painted the walls the same color except for the under the chair rail which we painted Sherwin William's Caviar, SW6990. The existing crown molding was removed and replaced with new crown molding around the cabinets and into the dining room so everything was the same and there was no weird transition.

 

The kitchen and the dining room are now divided by a peninsula that houses the microwave, trash/recycling, cutlery divider and a few rollouts on the front side and a hidden cabinet on the back. 

Love the happy little corbels. 

By the end of the day...POOF - the beginnings of a kitchen! Stay tuned, the countertops were templated a few days later, more on that soon!

All photos are my own. 

Mixed Greens

This weekend was Georgia's tax free shopping weekend! I was very excited as this is always a good time to make some Fall purchases. Even though it's only 7 -8% off, every little bit helps make certain pricey items a little more obtainable. I can rationalize anything... "it's a gift!" :)

As we all know, Tangerine Tango is the "color-of-the-year", but I'd say green is one of the hottest colors of this upcoming Fall season. We all know fashion and interiors are very much intertwined, so I set out to do some research this past weekend. As I was perusing some of my favorite stores (preparing my Fall wish list), I noticed the most beautiful shades of green showcased in everything from clothing to accessories.

This shade of green...........

2012 Tory Burch
Marianne Pump
in Malachite Green.

... and these shades...

Kate Spade jewelry display showcasing various shades of green.
Photo my own.

And this shade.....(no pun intended here, haha)

2012 Tory Burch
Classic Sunglasses
in Lagoon Green

The green hues are so fresh and exciting and have the potential to add a pop of warmth and elegance to any backdrop be it an outfit or a room.

After a little digging  I believe I found a few paint colors and interior versions of this hot trend for you to consider for your space.

Benjamin Moore's Lafayette Green HC-135

This color would require a good deal of light in the room to keep it from getting too dark, but I think it's got a rich softness about it that could add an unexpected pop to any space. 

How pretty is this? Bold, but pretty. Before taking the plunge with a color like this for all the cabinets in your kitchen, you want to make sure you really really really love it. With that being said, it's beautiful, different and fresh. I could see this color on an island with a contrasting perimeter - maybe a white.  

Notice how nice this green pairs with black, silver, white and gold.

This photo is via HouseBeautiful.

The perimeter cabinets in this kitchen are painted in Benjamin Moore's Sherwood Green HC-118. I think the space is light and airy. This green is not too in your face and really works nicely with the stained finish on the islands.

Benjamin Moore's Surf Blue 2056-30.

The wall color above comes across a bit more teal than the others but I think it's vibrant and beautiful.

This photo is via HouseBeautiful.

I really like this shot. The pops of green really create a funky, fresh look in what would otherwise be a very stark and sleek space. I love the pattern of the wallpaper & the mirror over the tub.

Green with envy yet?  It's never healthy to wish one's life away, but between the fashion taking over the racks as we speak and the photos above I'm itching for a time and place to play with a little green myself. Stay tuned!

Unless otherwise noted all photos are from google search.