We built our home 11 years ago and we are just getting to things that we thought we would do right away.

I am now so grateful that we didn’t make the changes earlier and spend the money for the upgrades earlier because I think I would be wanting to rip them out now.

One of the biggest upgrades to our home was the cherry floors we added and the cherry cabinets.

The cherry floors have always added so much warmth to our home but they are also a really soft wood.

{I will give all of my mixed thoughts on those on another day}

As we have re-painted and slowly changed the home over the past years the kitchen was the area that we didn’t tackle because of the cost.

We love the quality and style of the cabinets but I have been begging for a few years to paint them.

They are such nice cabinets that even friends that visit could understand Kelly’s reluctance to paint over them.

{Kelly is now on board with the painting of the cabinets and we will do that in phase two}

Another area we hadn’t upgraded was the counters.  We had always assumed we would do that on our own and save the money going through the builder.

After a few years being in the home we bought black granite tiles, all of the tools and it all just sat in the garage for two years until we sold it all on Craigslist. For real.

We just couldn’t pull the trigger on the nicer things we really wanted to add to the home.  It was so much at one time and there was always a million smaller things to do.

One of the design elements of our kitchen was a crazy angled island that had an upper and lower level.

Yes, that upper level hid all of the dirty dishes:-) but it left no real counter space.

This now brings me to our floors that were in desperate need of refinishing and 11 year old carpet that was looking worn out and dirty.

We decided to go ahead and get the floors refinished and add wood in the living room and my studio (formally known as… the dining room).

We went back and forth and back and forth and…you get the idea…about adding a new island.

We hadn’t planned for this and the cost was going to be bigger than anyone likes.

We decided to just go for it because if we didn’t do it now while the floors were getting refinished our window was really closed until the next time we refinished the wood.

You can see the previous progress photos HERE.

I can’t wait to show you the changes but we are still not finished but I am hoping to show you the island in a week or so!

I wanted to show you an inexpensive change we made in our kitchen that made a HUGE difference.

I like changes like this because that is usually what most of us can do…little changes over time.

{I am horrible about progress photos. We took this fast right before they came down}

Our 17 feet of cherry cabinets was just a large amount of cabinets.

I don’t know how I did it but I talked my husband into taking down 5 feet of the cabinets so we could replace them with open shelving.

From the moment we took them down the kitchen seemed brighter and more open.

When Kelly saw the empty wall for the first time he was not sharing my excitement.

We then asked my brother, a cabinet maker, to build us custom shelving.

I drew out what I wanted and designed the corbels and he did the hard stuff.

My mom, Maddy and I took turns priming and painting the shelves.

The wall color of our kitchen is Cappuccino White by Behr and we painted the shelves a bright white.

{When I photograph the whole kitchen I will use a tripod so I get better images}

I want to add more white ironstone dishes for every day use but I will just slowly add to my collection.

I am thrilled with how they turned out and the difference it made in our kitchen.

Join me on Monday when I show you my computer desk.

I can’t wait to show you how ripping out the built in desk and replacing it with a real desk added so much personality.

See you on Monday!

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