Fresh, Light, Beautiful Kitchens

I got all excited about the idea of fancying up a kitchen recently. Thoughts were running through my head of redoing the cabinets, changing out the lighting, the flooring, counters, sinks, adding a back splash, fruit bowls, everything.

I began looking at some beautiful kitchens for inspiration. Well guess what! I am going to let you, my friends, in on the fun!

I love a bright, open-feeling, kitchen with lots of light!

Here are 19 examples from some hard-working, talented folks.

This one reeled me in with its beautiful grey walls, the gorgeous greens outside and the wooden beams. This wonderfully-windowed kitchen is from here.

Look at those subway tiles! Look at those glass cabinets! I'm ready to move in. The photo is from these talented folks.

I love the vaulted ceilings on this one and the long bar. These are the fireplace lovin' people who I borrowed the photo from.

This is a house I could imagine growing up in. I would be doing my homework at that island (at 2am because I am a terrible procrastinator). I would be making my pierogies on that stove. I would be breaking those pretty bowls and plates by spastically trying to juggle the oranges. Check out the bead board backing to that bookshelf!

This is one bright and modern kitchen. If I lived here I would definitely feel like I was vacationing in Stockholm but I don't see any problem with that!

Hello backsplash! What a pretty thing! I wish I could see what they are hiding in that open area under the sink. The photo is from these sneaky people.

Add bright yellow into any room and I will be a happy camper. I love how they have cabinets all the way up to the (very tall) ceiling. No wasting here! What a lovely, airy door! This photo is from these  yellow-lovin' dudes (probably dudettes too).

This kitchen has combined lots of different styles and they have done it well. What a fresh, light, beautiful kitchen. Photo from here.

WHAT IN THE WORLD! Who has a view like that? Why have I not been invited. To the people who own this kitchen: Yes, I accept your invitation.

LOVE the industrial look mixed with the calming blues and the awesome backsplash. This is the kind of kitchen where you have a good time making deviled eggs (?) just like the folks above. Photo borrowed from here.

SMART PEOPLE! See through cabinets when you have a nice window and lots of light on the other side of them. Adding some subtle grey tones and beautiful pendant lighting certainly didn't make me turn my nose either. This beaut of a kitchen was found here.

Clever! I am very impressed at how they were able to make this tiny kitchen feel so big. Those floors are driving me wild! Drool-worthy floor photo from here.

How lucky to have two windows in a fairly small kitchen. The bar really opens the space up! I love the wood counters! Photo on loan from here.

What a neat grouping of bottles at the top right of the page. That space is perfect for it. I love that they used a vintage-looking cabinet for the wet bar. Once again, I am digging the back splash on the back wall. This lovely space was found here.

Bead board bead board you are nifty! I love the idea of having a shelf stop right at the top of some tall, bead board wasinscottng. This fresh kitchen was found here.

This one is not exactly fresh and light but it is beautiful. AND look what I see hiding on the left side of the picture. I think I see a loft!!!!! Photo from here

Ohhhh la la! That FLOOR! That ceiling! That beautiful pendant light. This kitchen is wonderful! They even snuck a bunch of my favorite color, green, all over the place. Image from here

This one is a bit country and  a bit shabby chic. All of the light and the wood ceilings are what caught my eye. I do love some yellow and grey too- those are some funky cabinets! Image from here

Last but certainly not least is the gorgeous kitchen from the the clever folks over at Young House Love. They magically turned a dark, wood-paneled, claustrophobic eating factory into this fresh, light, and beautiful kitchen. Image from here.

Our kitchen at our current house is just fixed up enough that the anti-waster in me would be very upset about changing anything. I really like our kitchen and boy oh boy do we have a beautiful view (with lots of windows to show it off). 

All of these fresh, light, and beautiful kitchens have got me itching to get my hands on a real fixer-upper.

Decarpeting The House And Silencing The Stairs

It was Carpet City in our house when we moved in. It was in the bathrooms (I am not sure that toilets and carpet are supposed to mix), on the stairs, on the wall (it is on the wall part of a step from one room to another... I am calling it the wall) and it smelled like cat pee like you wouldn't believe.

Sorry. This is the best before photo I have of there being carpet all up in the toilet's face. Just trust me. It was there.

The carpet had to go. I KNOW THAT'S RIGHT!

• First, we ripped up all of the old carpet and vinyl.

• We paid to have someone put the new carpet down for us, but we saved money by ripping up the old stuff ourselves. I am not quite sure how much we saved and I would do the same thing again but that is because I am pretty darn cheap. It was a lot of work cutting that carpet into just the right sized pieces so our bulk trash pickup would take them. We also had to lug them up to the curb. And the best looking part of it all was that the area of my arm that was showing between my gloves and my short sleeve developed some gross, red spots from carrying yucky carpet. That's right people... I AM A FANCY LADY!

• We sprayed vinegar on every surface of the floor (lots of internet research told us that this would help combat the cat pee stench). That did not do the trick, so we tried it again and again. It smelled a little bit less each time, but it was still there. So, I called a pro... our old neighbor who is a professional painter. He suggested something called "Zinsser Bin Primer/ Sealer."  This is the holy grail of pungency. It smelled stronger than any paint or stain I have ever used. He told me that this is used after a fire to cover up fire damage and he has used it to cover bad smells.  It worked!!! Not the slightest hint of cat pee anywhere.

• After the smell was gone we could concentrate on our new flooring.

We had bamboo flooring put down in the living room and dining room.

We put beadboard on the little step in the living room where carpet was on the wall.  I tried to match the color of the bamboo when I painted the bead board.

Before Bamboo and Bead Board:

After Bamboo and Bead Board:

We had tile laid on a diagonal in the kitchen and bathroom (yay for no more toilet carpet).

The Floor Before The Tile:

The After Photos:

Now onto the stairs... I knew that I did not want carpet wrapped around what could be a pretty cool open staircase. So we ripped the carpet off and underneath was a builder-grade step. It wasn't pretty and there were nail heads popping up from both sides of the step.

Before Any Change To The Stairs:

As a temporary solution I painted the steps black. (Temporary turned into almost 4 years).

I also painted the railings from white to black to match the steps.

My father in law suggested that we not wrap the carpet around the wall near the railings like it had been.  So, we had the carpet people stop the carpet with some tacks and we put up some boards to cover the seam.

After Painting The Stairs and The Raling:

Fastforward 4 plus years. We now have a baby who is not the world's best sleeper... HUGE UNDERSTATEMENT.

You cannot believe how loud and squeaky our stairs are. It sounds like an elephant brought his entire circus squad to dance around on them when you walk down the steps.

We knew we wanted to upgrade the stairs eventually but we wanted to do some research... apparently four years worth of research to figure out what we wanted to replace the steps with.

After a few months of me making Scott go around the house instead of down the stairs so he would not wake the baby we decided new stairs were a necessity.

I called around a few places and got some quotes. Everyone was very helpful but I didn't love any of the ideas people had. Most everyone wanted to use a junky wood wrapped in a nice piece of wood to give it the appearance of one big piece of chunky wood.

Finally, someone referred me to "The Stair Master." Who knew... I should have just googled "stair master" in Charlotte to find what I wanted.

Mr. Stair Master suggested getting one big, honkin' piece of wood for each step and cutting each one to a different size so it would be a perfect fit. It turns out that I like a big, honkin' piece of wood! The only thing was the price was not right. I talked him down about $200. The price was still not right but the cost seemed worth it to help ease the stress of being crazy, new parents (maybe just crazy, new mom).

This is a photo that I sneakily took soon after he arrived. I was so excited to see the beautiful, new steps!

Here they are going in:

Check out those cute, little feet in the bouncy seat at the top of the steps. This is before she was anywhere near mobile. I promise she was safe!

I don't think Mr. Stair Master knew I was taking this photo.

Mr. Stair Master recommended we let the stairs dry out a bit more and also get some patina to them before we polyurethane or stain them. They have really darkened up quite a bit since they were installed.

I will be sure to post an updated photo of them when we get around to polying them.

I love my beautiful, SILENT as can be new stairs! In fact, the stairs are so quiet that Scott and I kept startling each other because we used to know as soon as one of us placed the first hint of a foot on the stairs.