Monday, December 17, 2007

Dear Internets: Need Your Help

I bought a house. (yay!) I've moved in finally and it's really quite awesome! The commute is fantastic. The place is the perfect size for me and the Monkey. The location is fabulous. And I just adore this little community. In fact, just a little while ago, Santa came down my street riding on a well-lit fire truck waving at everyone...while volunteer firemen jogged alongside handing out candy canes and personally wishing every resident Merry Christmas. How could I not love living here?!

Other than painting, I haven't done much to the place...except for the kitchen. The kitchen that I bought had a door that closed it off from the front room...and big, oak cabinets on both sides of the tiny (10'-ish wide) space. It wasn't bad...but it wasn't great either.

From the listing, USED to look like this:


and this...


And that part was an issue... The cabinets were too heavy for that small space...and the microwave was far too big and far too close to the stovetop. Claustrophobia was setting in... So I took them down entirely...painted the walls a sage-green color...and replaced with open shelving. The kitchen feels much larger now and looks, on that side, like this:


...and this...


I think it's already a nice improvement.

But here's the question (and where I'll take opinions)...is that too barren? Too cold? Does it need some color to warm it up?


Or does the color just make it too busy?

Eventually I should put up a proper backsplash...and with all the stainless in there now, it felt like it maybe needed something to keep that side from edging toward the entirely industrial. This particular print is probably a bit too busy for the space, but in the sense of "color as a concept"? I don't know...

What do you think?


**EDIT: Ooh! I know! What if, instead of color on the wall -- like a print -- I did something like a small wooden shelf/ledge under the hanging pots? Just a little something to warm it up, without completely overwhelming it...plus it would be a handy place to display some spices.

Better idea?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think a nice red tile backsplash should liven it up a bit.

towwas said...

Yeah, I feel like it needs something to soften it up, but I don't know what.

MonkeyMom said...

Oooh....red tile! Now that's an interesting thought...

I need my friend DoodleJ to come visit. I think she took classes in this kind of thing...

Unknown said...

I was all prepared to get behind a spice-shelf (but not a Spice-shelf, that would just be odd) 100%, but now I'm on the red tile bandwagon. Do your own grouting!

(I can't wait to have a house)