Home Improvements, Part 2, Kitchen & Family Room

We’ve made some changes in these rooms since I first showed them to you, and it’s feeling more like us now. 💛 I’m including most of those first photos here for comparison.

Remember the 1980’s carpet blinds (above)? I took them down, which was a feat, because you guys, this sliding door is 10 feet long! I patched the holes, painted the patches, and put up my IKEA curtains that I’ve had for a long time, and still love. Currently:

The family room is looking more complete now. Before:

Currently:

The mantel that I told you about last time is up now—yay!! We loved it at Christmas, and we love it now too! I brought in a pot of succulents that trail down over the mantel, and Sven, my deer seems very content there too 😉 The fiddle leaf isn’t getting smaller, it’s a different fiddle leaf. 😂 The big fiddle leaf that used to be there looks so great in the front room (which has cathedral ceilings) that he had to stay there, he just refused to move back. So one weekend when Andrew and I were out on a coffee and errands date, we found this new little guy at Home Depot. I put the new fiddle leaf in a basket from IKEA, and it already has 2 new leaves. Happy plant mama.

Above was the family room when we first moved in. Here it is now:

I just added a couple more pillows, a wreath, a tray on the ottoman, and of course the mantel makes a big difference. It feels more lived in, ya know? But the biggest project, which is still ongoing is painting the kitchen cabinets:

The kids unbreakable enamel plates are HERE.

As you can see, I’ve finished the lower cabinets on one side of the kitchen. The top cabinets on this side are not quite finished, this photo is deceiving 😉 You can also tell from these photos that I added sheer white roman shades to the family room. The big girls and I had a fun time taking a trip to IKEA, about an hour away, to get the shades. Unfortunately, they were out of the longer white roman shades which I need for the breakfast nook, a bay window to the right of the photo above. You can kind of get a glimpse of the breakfast nook in the first photo.

I also have to gush for a second over my new kitchen towels. Not only are they the right length for my towel holder (all of my others are too long), but they dry lightening fast. So fast that I bought more of them, because I can’t stand using my old ones after experiencing these! 😂 They’re not especially good looking, but I love them so much I don’t care.

There are links to some of the other products in these photos is in the last post, HERE. When I finish painting the kitchen cabinets I’ll give you the full before and after photo tour of that! I’m really excited about how it’s looking so far. It’s so much lighter now in the kitchen, that I keep saying it’s as though I put in windows, not painted cabinets. Also, a little teaser—we are actually taking down the upper cabinets on the other side of the kitchen, and replacing them with open shelving. Eeek! Can’t wait!

♥, Kelly