The Kitchen

Our story progresses further as we move on to the kitchen space. Having an authentic farmhouse kitchen is quite the commodity given all of the recent developments and renovations in our area as Elise says, so instead of ripping everything apart, she maintained the character of the kitchen while adding some of our youthful personality. She decided that the brown, beige and green glass/ceramic tile backsplash didn’t quite compliment the colour scheme for the rest of the house and that it had to go. I have to hand it to her - a lot of people would have been content with the modern look of the tile, but she has something different in mind and she was sticking to it. She immediately called her mum (or as I like to put her partner in crime) and off they went to look for some new tiles. Five phone calls later about measurements and “What do you think?”, she sauntered in with a huge smile on her face and an even larger box of tiles that she somehow found from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  She managed to find mosaic glass tiles with opalescent green/blue/purple sheen to them. She told me that usually these run about 25$/sq ft to buy new, but she managed to bargain them for 3$ /sq ft at the ReStore.  I am still indifferent to this day about them, but she was absolutely ecstatic (referring to them as the “Mermaid Butt Tiles”) and who am I to burst this eager interior decorators dream.  I’m guessing she didn’t think about the work that taking down the existing backsplash was going to entail because about two weeks later, our kitchen was covered in plaster dust, Elise was complaining (quite dramatically) of arm pain and was shocked at how time consuming this job was because it could only be done individual tile by tile. Needless to say, there was a hungry and unenthused roommate who grew tired of a fast-food diet and plaster seasoning on all my food very quickly.. I encouraged a break to take the time to rest and clean as she went, also for me to have some decent food! Elise looked relieved (although a little defeated) and resumed her undertaking about three weeks later. She carried on by filling the missing chunks of wall (because our house is so old the mortar from the walls behind the original backsplash was kind of disintegrating), applying the remaining tile with adhesive and then finally grouting the entire thing, which luckily only took a week. Now was my time to shine… cleanup was my specialty and in my mind the most important contribution. All jokes aside, we polished our new Mermaid Butt backsplash and began discussing future plans for the kitchen, which ideally will be done by summer this year. For the counters Elise had her heart set on a butcher block wooden look to contrast the white cabinets and give a country cottage look.  It will either be Butcher block, which is fairly cost effective to install. And aside from regular sealing doesn’t require much maintenance or an ecofriendly recycled quartz type stone surface that will lend a more sleek, modern look to the space. It seems our little monster hound Bailey decided that he wanted to be included in the renovations, as he took it upon himself to start ripping up the linoleum/vinyl flooring that was already present in the kitchen in a tug-of-war, “look mum I’m helping” kind of way.  Many roommates or homeowners would have been really angry with this, but to my surprise Elise wasn’t to upset. After offering to replace it, she encouraged me that it may speed the process of us having the grey/brown wood-look tile installed. Sure enough the wood is sitting in our laundry room area, awaiting installation.  Probably the most realistic next step will be the paint that Elise wants to reface the cabinets with. It’s either going to be that she paints the lower cabinetry in a dusty grey/blue and then white repainted top cabinetry, or she’s going to strip out all the cabinets and start fresh with an Ikea modular system.  I find either one to be a great idea now understanding how dirty and worn looking they become, especially with a puppy around. Finishing touches would be to remove the desk and drafting table and just have the bar stools and a small sitting table as furniture, with two low pendent lights above the bar area and remove the track lighting.

Here’s a picture of before and after the backsplash and current look of the kitchen along with a conceptual idea of how it will look after.