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Little Yellow House: Kitchen Plans

Hey All. Today, I am both excited and nervous. We are about to totally deconstruct our kitchen. We are almost at our 3 year mark on the house. We have done a lot, come a long way, but sometimes it feels like we still have a lot to do. A big project being the kitchen. And this weekend is go time.

We were lucky because although the kitchen isn’t glamorous it was nice that the appliances hung in there till the end (even with a leaky dishwasher it still worked!).

So, these before pics are pretty bad (I took them when we were half way through packing everything up)….but here we go.

See this below pic? The door right in the back there goes right out to the garage. Which is hard for organization. You will also notice that although it’s pretty big kitchen, there really is very little counter top space. It’s all these small fragmented spots. Difficult for cooking.

Here is a pic of the opposite end. Potentially there was a dinning nook here once?

Here is the current layout. The space on the right side of this is where the kitchen is today. See the room on the left? That seriously was, what I think was a cocktail room. Full built ins, not big enough for a dinning room space.

Here is a pic of the room mentioned above that was “on the left side” Again this room was right off the kitchen and a hard space to actually use.

Here you can see we have already demo’ed this space. Since we weren’t using it for anything it was easier to start on at our leisure before we were really in high gear.

The “weird cocktail room” opens up to where our kitchen table is, through the double doors….

My sister is an architect so she created the perfect use of this space.

And now the today. Here is the plan!

This new layout gains us a couple things.

1. It allows us to have a little mud room off the garage before entering the kitchen. Today the kitchen is always a mess because everything gets dumped right when we get home from work.

2. It opens up the kitchen to the dinning area and right into the rest of the living room.

3. It adds a half bath.

4. It also adds a…..butlers pantry! because we all know I have a dish problem!

5. And it adds laundry on floor vs. in the basement.

So pretty much my sister is the shit and utilized the space 100% better than it was being used before.

My sister was even able to do a cool 3D rendering.

Wish us luck and be sure to follow along on instagram for the progress!

@lianna_utley

In the next week or so I will show you some inspiration pics on what we are going for with all the finishings in this space!

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Breakfast Nook Before & After

Last spring I started helping a good friend of mine decorate her breakfast nook. She, and her family moved into the house just before last Christmas. The space is significantly larger than the last space, so we needed to try to incorporate good pieces with some pieces that we could rescue to help save on the cost.

and a quick before….

as you can see the space was pretty empty, table was too small, bar stools too short, and a big blank wall that needed some love….

For this space one of the unique furniture rescues we did was this console table. I found it at a local consignment shop, and I refinished it in a beautiful high gloss laquer using Fine Paints of Eurpoe Paint. Have you ever used this paint. It is super tricky to paint with, but its super high quality and if you get it done right the after is beautiful.

I am the worst at taking before pictures, but here is the before of the console. Special shout out to my Uncle Bill for his help in fixing one of the feet on this piece. When I brought it home I realized one of the feet was busted off, and he kindly help me fix it. It’s a good reminder for those hunting for great pieces out there. Slow down, take your time, and make sure you know what you are getting. This worked out, but if I didn’t have someone to help, it would not have turned out nearly as good!

I also love love the art that we filled the wall with. To start we featured a vintage car picture that my brother and law and I took together on vacation last summer. The vintage car sitting on a dock on the coast of Maine was  a perfect piece for this family, and the color worked so well in the space. We mixed this with Vintage Royal Coppenhagen Christmas Plates. My mother has featured these plates in her homes the entire time I have been growing up, and considering the navy and white trend that is currently going on I am surprised I haven’t seen anyone else take on these accents. I love the way the vignette turned out!

The other rescue that we did was this chandelier. If you remember we tackled an old brass chandelier like this one for my sunroom (check it out here). It turned out so well that I wanted to do it again here. The space is so big, and the previous chandelier was just teeny tiny. So I wanted something that filled the space but didn’t break the bank. We all know that chandliers this size can come with a mightly price tag, so this was a perfect solution.

Like every good table we had to set it pretty for the pictures. Do you like this table setting? Check out the items for purchase in my coming pop up shop!

What do you think of the space? I personally love how well the big open area is filled out now. It’s the kind of space you just want to curl up in and have a cup of tea and a quiche.

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Special Announcement: Pop Up Shop

Hi Friends.

Ok…I am putting myself out there today. I have had a dream for a long time. For years I have dreamed this dream and thought that it would never be possible. But last January I thought to myself. Why. In 40 years from now will I regret if I fail? Or never try. So here we go.

I have been planning a pop up shop since last January. Yes! a pop up shop! It’s been a dream to open a shop with pillows and art and refinished furniture. So that is exactly what I am doing. I figure better to test it out right?

It has provided many hurdles, but now the end, and everything I have been preparing for (along with my family along for the ride) is in sight. So, if you are in town the 2 weekends after labor day I am hoping you will join me! Follow along with the next couple weeks as I will be posting on instagram @lianna_utley and @twohigandtuinstra with pictures of all the beautiful things I have been making!!

Thanks for all your support friends! Love you all!

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Master Bathroom Reveal

this post has been a long time coming – so I am so sorry for my delay. If you remember I left off diving into my master bathroom during the one room challenge (spring) right after we moved in. We knew we were going to do the bathroom right away, but honestly I was too ambitious thinking it would take only 6 weeks. Lets be real. We do 90% of the work here at the #littleyellowhouserefresh ourself so no project ever only takes 6 weeks (i’m exaggerating some stuff we can get done in that time…). Anyway so needless to say the bathroom took us 6 months to get done, and at that point I wanted to wait until we officially wallpapered to showoff the final outcome. Well we wallpapered a while ago, so since I am a bad blogger I am just now posting, but we love our new space and I am excited to finally share it with you.

so our bathroom was a MESS, and it was started day 1. Literally Chris and my dad didn’t even try to unpack any boxes to make sure we could cook dinner or wear clothes, they instead thought it would be a fantastic idea to gut the bathroom. at least they got it started.

Like I said, we did all of the work ourself, with the assistance of my trusty dad (retired plumber, lucky us) and cousin (electrical). But Chris and I did all the tile work, mudding, wallpapering ect.

And here is the after. First of all – it was a jack n jill bathroom aka it was a walk through. 2 doors, one to the master bedroom and one to the front hallway. It made the bathroom really a lot smaller than it was, because most of the area was wasted with doors and walk way. This enabled us to make a vanity about 3x the original size. I mean the old teeny vanity didn’t allow me to even have a spot for a curling iron. WTF. So that was a HUGE win.

next HUGE win was opening up the wall that the shower had. Before the bathroom didn’t have a half wall. It went all the way up. It felt like a CAVE. I love the half wall. It’s a small bathroom but the opening up the wall helps it feel much bigger than it really is.

Next. Lets talk about this vanity. Are you in love or in LOVE. I am in DOUBLE LOVE. It’s so fun. It’s exactly what I wanted. It is a custom made piece by some amish friends of my dad. They are the BOMB.

The other thing I love that we changed totally was the doorway to the bathroom. The previous door swung into the bathroom – again waste of space. So we changed it out with 2 small double doors that swing into the bedroom. much better.

I topped the doors with small little circle trim. I thought that was an adorable little touch.

Overall I am super happy with it. I love the way the master bedroom transitions, and the whole space flows together. This, with the bedroom, was the first space that really started to feel like home here. I love it and it is a delight to get ready every morning.

Let me know what you think of the new space!

Since this bathroom, we have also finished our second bathroom so I hope to share that soon!

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Sister’s Kitchen Renovation

Hey Friends!

This past weekend I was at my sisters house as she and her husband started renovating their kitchen! We had a great weekend and we lovingly named it #familydemo day. We had a whole crew there. Both sets of parents, sisters, brothers, and some friends. Since it’s a kitchen they were trying to do the renovation as fast as possible so they aren’t out of a kitchen too long.

This was the before of the Kitchen.

And here was the dinning room.

The kitchen was taking out all the cabinets and fully gutting down to fully replace everything. Also in the dinning room the goal was to remove the window and replace with all full sliding glass door to go outside to a new deck! Big project.

Here was my sister’s inspiration board.

We are a ridiculous family – so naturally we were all up by 5:30AM and we had the full kitchen demo’ed by 8:30AM!

And by the end of the day the window was prepped and put in.

Then the next day we got the rest of the cabinets in and my sister and I got the hardware on.

I love the hardware she picked out. It’s so fun!

Stay tuned over the next couple weeks, they still have a bit more to do. Flooring, Deck off the back of the house, backsplash, lighting updates, and of course of a bunch of detailing to do. I was pumped on how much we got done and the whole space is already looking fantastic!

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ORC: Wk 6 Sunroom Reveal!

So I am about 8 hour late in posting, but this is a true testament to the the true spirit of the #oneroomchallenge. We were up late last night framing our pictures, hanging, and finishing cleaning. So we didn’t take pictures till this afternoon and since we work full-time we are just posting now 😉

As a reminder here is our before picture.

As a reminder we have done a lot of work on the room over the last 6 weeks.

Fully painted room, and trim, update track lighting, painted consignment shop chandelier and installed, refinished table, made pillows, reupholstered cornices, husband hand painted pelicans and framed….

The room is odd, because a weird edition of the home made this sunroom our main entry way. So we wanted something that could be hom

ey but also functional. At first I wanted to make the whole space my craft/project room but it is the first room guests see when they get in. So I needed something that was also welcoming. I also love to have great spots to have dinners so we made it into a second dining area. This way I can temporarily set up projects and it won’t be in the way in the house.

We also have a couple craigslist finds in this space. First this console. Isn’t it a great find. It’s more of a buffet, it’s actually slightly taller than the height of an average counter top. Which will be great for entertaining. We had it here for Easter and it worked great. $350 can’t beat it!

I loved the baskets underneath for storage.

Aren’t the pelicans fun? My husband painted them! He is so great  at making fun art in the house.

I loved our little rosemary topiaries too! My husband loves having plants around the house, and with all the sun this room gets it’s a perfect place to have plants.

The second craigslist find was this dinning room table. Funny story. My mother in law was at an estate sale and she texted me this $100 table. and I told her I would take it. Chris and I stripped it down to the raw wood and stained it white. We still need to put a poly coat on it and potentially cover it in a liming wax. That might be TBD, because I am already loving the beautifully graining that we pulled out of this peice

chan.

Green chandelier goodness! I am in love with this piece. When I first told my husband we were painting the gold consignment shop find ($60) lime green he told me I was crazy. But you aren’t putting much on the line at such a price! we just spray painted it and crossed our fingers as we installed it hoping all along it would all work properly. My dad and Chris totally re-did all the electrical in the ceiling. It was ugly track lighting before! Huge improvement.

I am also pumped about the lemon tree! I have always wanted a lemon tree and we finally bought one. Obviously it isn’t bearing fruit yet, but I will keep you posted when we can make our first cocktail with our fresh lemons!

Anyway. I am happy that finally our room isn’t just a dumping space. The room has such great lighting it’s an amazing spot to hang out it!

Don’t forget to check out all the other one room participants during the final stage of this challenge!