The Beginning of our Kitchen Planning

"Remembering the hours after September 11th when we can together as one... It was the worst day we have ever seen but it brought out the best in all of us." -Sen. John Kerry. I just wanted to reflect for a moment on a day I will never forget. My prayers are with everyone today, especially those who lost their loved ones.

Before we moved in I already envision exactly what I wanted our kitchen to look like. All white! I drew so much inspiration from a few bloggers who had redone their kitchen themselves. Young House Love was probably my biggest inspiration as far as what I wanted our dream kitchen to look like. Their slow, but oh so addicting transformation of their kitchen was one I admire to this day. Its amazing what they did with their existing cabinets and so much more. Check it all out here.

However, there were two more bloggers who had inspired me just as much. Particularly because they used Ikea cabinets. Since Tony and I knew going in that we needed to gut our kitchen completely we had to figure out a way to work with the budget we had in mind. So after I read about these two kitchen remodels with Ikea cabinets I felt so inspired that we can get this done ourselves too. Aubrey and Linsday's Little House Blog and Cape 27 Blog had me obsessing over many similar details.

• The crisp white Ikea Adel cabinet doors with silver hardware.
• The oh so classic and simple subway tile backsplash.
• How amazing the chocolate stained wood floors made those cabinets pop!
• The tideous but intelligent budget planning.

The mood board below is basically what I had on my mind. The center picture is the wall color choice. Since our kitchen flows right into the living room we wanted one neutral paint color for both rooms. 

(P.S. I just want to throw out that you may have noticed from my previous posts that a lot of other work was done around the staircase. At this point there is plenty of work that is already complete which I want to catch you all up to speed about. So don't be confused when you see some pictures of the house in a warzone stage and then others with finished walls and what not.)