Kitchen Reveal! What I love enough to do again, and what I’ll change in our next kitchen

Kitchen Reveal! touch faucet

It's our very last Friday in this house and of all the things I'm most attached to and sad to leave, I think my kitchen tops the list! I have loved this kitchen so much and for YEARS now (yes, literally, years!) I've been promising a kitchen reveal with all of the sources we used to make this kitchen the way we love it. So FINALLY today I'm sharing this kitchen reveal, just in time before we leave but, better late than never right?! 🙂

We worked with my incredibly talented friend Jen from House Collected to makeover this kitchen. Jen isn't taking clients currently since her husband is in his LAST semester of dental school, but is planning to pick things back up this summer so keep her in mind if you have e-projects you want to do after July! She's AMAZING!!

Here's a  before photo … it's not the very best because we had already begun the process but this is right after we installed new appliances, had ripped out the tan granite counter tops and backsplash, and the left cabinet had been ripped out where we made plans to do open shelving instead.

Kitchen Reveal! quartz contertopsKitchen Reveal! quartz contertops

Instead of buying entirely new cabinets we decided to just reface the cabinets and have our carpenter add a small box at the top of each cabinet, so that we could order doors that would go all the way to the ceiling. I think it's one of my favorite changes about the kitchen because it makes everything look so much taller and bigger!

We also took the backsplash to the ceiling which I absolutely LOVE!!

Here's a progress photo during the remodel process … I spy Harry & David pears haha. This was the day the tile was installed so the grout was darker while it was drying. In retrospect I do like the grout a bit darker so you can see the contrast of the tile, and I think I'll do a darker grout in the new house if we change up the backsplash!

Kitchen Reveal! tile backsplash

And here's the final product! I'm going to walk you guys through all my favorite features of our kitchen remodel below.

Kitchen Reveal! pendant lightsKitchen Reveal! marble utensil holder

Open shelving is one of the things I was MOST excited about visually in our kitchen and I love how it adds some texture and variety to all the white! Our carpenter custom built these too with dimensions from Jen.

Kitchen Reveal! glasses  Kitchen Reveal! white dishesKitchen Reveal! white dishes

We decided to do a quartz countertop that looks like marble and I have LOVED it. SO super durable, even more durable than granite, but so pretty! I would FOR SURE do this again in another kitchen. Our next kitchen already has marble in it and I have to say, I'm a little nervous how it's gonna hold up with two (soon to be three) kids ha!

And our tile backsplash was a Walker-Zanger Jet set Thassos White in honed finish.

Kitchen Reveal! marble utensil holder

Next up, my sink! I LOVE this double apron sink with all my heart. It's an apron sink that my mom has and she recommended it to me because of this ONE reason: you can fit an entire cookie sheet to soak on EITHER SIDE!!! Isn't that dreamy!? If we ever do a remodel on our new house I'll 100% use this sink again.  I was worried it might get all scratched up because I have memories of having to scrub my mom's porcelain sink as a kid with bleach forEVER to get all the black marks out, but the new really nice fire clay sinks are made much more durable and this one hardly ever shows a mark, and even when it does it scrubs out super easily. They really do look so nice all the time with very minimal effort.

Kitchen Reveal! apron double kitchen sink Kitchen Reveal! apron double kitchen sink

Okay I keep saying my favorite thing is this or that but for real, this faucet is a LIFE CHANGER!! It's a touch faucet so you can have messy hands or chicken guts on your fingers and just tap with even your forearm anywhere on the faucet and it will turn on. It's so amazing! The only bad thing is you get so used to using it that when you go to other people's houses, you'll be tapping on their faucet too wondering why it's not turning on haha. It's on sale and I FOR SURE want to put this in our next kitchen, just trying to decide between gold or that pretty flat black!

Kitchen Reveal! touch faucetKitchen Reveal! apron double kitchen sink Not really a kitchen remodel topic but something I always get asked about are these large storage jars for my sugar and flour. We bake so much that I LOVE having these ingredients out all the time, plus I think they're pretty!

Kitchen Reveal! flour and sugar jars

And next, did you spy my new obsession? Our pebble ice maker!!! I just barely got this a couple months ago and it's EVERYONE's favorite thing. My girls love it, I love it, Neil loves it, and it just plugs into the wall so it's for sure coming with us to the next house!!

Kitchen Reveal! pebble ice maker

Not the most exciting detail, but if anyone is looking for a SMALL microwave, this is one of the smallest I could find and it has worked great for us! I love it.

I honestly cannot remember nor can I find a receipt of where the knobs and pulls are from, but coincidentally they're one of the things I didn't love over time in this kitchen anyway. I just feel like they show fingerprints SUPER easily and always look kind of dirty (as you can see in the next picture). I'm excited to change that up in the new house!

Kitchen Reveal! microwaveI'm so happy that our next house has a Wolf range again. This range has been so incredible for us and I recommend Wolf appliances 10000% to anyone in the search for appliances. By far the thing I am very saddest to leave behind are my Wolf electric double ovens! When the time is right, I plan to put the exact same electric double ovens into our new house. We'll have gas ovens below our range in the new house, but they won't be convection and if you've ever made THESE cookies (that we literally make at least once a week!) they just aren't the same without a convection oven.

Also, some people think a warming drawer is a waste of time but I LOVED having mine. It's so nice if you're making a big meal and need the oven for something else and need to keep a dish hot until the rest of the food is ready!

   Kitchen Reveal! microwave These lights are from Schoolhouse Electric and I'd buy them again in a heartbeat too. So pretty and they just added the best finishing touch to this kitchen!

Kitchen Reveal! pendant lightsKitchen Reveal! pendant lightsKitchen Reveal! pendant lightsKitchen Reveal! quartz contertops  Kitchen Reveal! stool

Our exact bar stools aren't available anymore, but here's the closest thing to what we have that's available now. I do like that these barstools clean up really well, but if I had to do it again (which I do haha) I might choose something with a bit more contrast!

These photos turned out really warm and the wood isn't quite as warm as they look in this picture, but we used this Mullican engineered wood in Oak Seashell. I feel like in real life they look a lot more like this photo.

I've been super happy with this flooring and feel like it's taken all the traffic of little kids and our dog super well and cleans up so easily!

 

I hope you enjoyed the tour today of my kitchen, just in time before we move out!! I promise as we make changes to the new kitchen to share with you guys what we end up doing, and that it won't take me 2.5 years next time to get around to it haha.

SOURCES:

my kimono
tile backsplash
quartz contertops
glasses
white dishes
pendant lights
marble utensil holder
apron double kitchen sink
touch faucet
pebble ice maker
microwave
flour and sugar jars
gold paper towel holder
marble utensil holder
wood cutting board sold out, similar
bar stools sold out, similar
large jar vase sold out, similar
design by Jen of House Collected
photos by Arielle Levy

Corrine Stokoe

Corrine Stokoe is a blogger, podcaster and content creator behind the brand Mint Arrow. She and her husband Neil live in South Orange County with their 5 kids, she runs her blog and business with 7 team members, where they find the best daily deals and share favorite finds in fashion and beauty. They also run a podcast called Mint Arrow Messages. Mint Arrow has been featured in Forbes, Women's Wear Daily, Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, AdWeek and Allure. Corrine is passionate about sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ as often as she can and teaching others to use social media for good.

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Hi, I’m Corrine and it’s pretty simple. I think you deserve to buy the things you want at a price you can afford. Here you can find the best deals and steals on high end fashion, as well as beauty and wellness tutorials.

Comments

  1. What does it look like when you open your kitchen cabinet door? Since you added a box is it empty on the top or just filled in. Would love to see inside. We need to do this for our kitchen. Love yours so much!

    1. Hey Erin! Corrine said it was just a white cabinet box inside! She wishes she could show you but this is in their old house so she don’t have access to the kitchen or cabinets anymore, so sorry! -Kourtney

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