Decorating the Kitchen

This is a follow-up to my post,  "A little decorating is all it takes", about decorating a plain/ho-hum kitchen to make it look much better than average.

I would be remiss not to include the kitchen from An Urban Cottage because while Steve did a bit more work than simply adding decoration, he did not completely overhaul the kitchen, and the results are still pretty incredible.

Before

After

Here is what Steve did to the space:

• Painted walls, cabinets, and the tile (yes, he painted the tile)
• Installed inexpensive stock oak cabinets (which he painted) to either side of the stove with butcher block counter on the top
• Added shelves above the stove
• Purchased a vintage work table for an island
• Put up bamboo blinds on the windows

The accessories really make the space, and my absolute favorite part of the transformation is the perfectly sized mirror over the sink.  I wrote about using mirrors in kitchens here.



 And speaking of kitchens, I realized that though it has been months and months since I painted our rental kitchen, I never have shown pictures of the hardware installed.

Before

After cabinets were painted.

After cabinets pulls were installed.

Apologies for the grainy pictures -- the light was bad.

The point of this post?  You don't need a ton of cash, a contractor, and months of renovation to make your kitchen look better if you are unhappy with it.  All it might need is a little decorating.

But, you know, I wouldn't mind a gorgeous Wolf range and hood, some subway tile, pretty pendants, an island...