“BEFORE” the big kitchen reveal…
The 1990s called and they want your “Almond” appliances, peach tile, and corian countertops back. Like now. Oh my goodness, these are photos when we, my boyfriend, now husband, you all know him as design hubby and I hosted our first friendsgiving. Can you say “country kitchen” much! Thank goodness we are so hot looking because this kitchen was so “yikes”. As you will see, we plugged along with this “killer kitchen” for years, one marriage and three children later to be exact.
“BEFORE” the big kitchen reveal…
The 1990s called and they want your “Almond” appliances, peach tile, and corian countertops back. Like now. Oh my goodness, these are photos when we, my boyfriend, now husband, you all know him as design hubby and I hosted our first friendsgiving. Can you say “country kitchen” much! Thank goodness we are so hot looking because this kitchen was so “yikes”. As you will see, we plugged along with this “killer kitchen” for years, one marriage and three children later to be exact.
Seriously…nothing beats builder grade everything in a 1990s new build, but HELLO! It’s 2018, and time to bring that kitchen into this century, with a dope design, and new layout.
Let’s face it, everything was in working order. But just because it “worked” does not mean it should have stayed. How many of you are still working with that peach Home Depot tile on your floors?
We were for years…until just last summer. But wait, we aren’t totally dissing Home Depot. We used another tile from them in the new space. And yes, this amazing Southern New Hampshire client was…us. Yes, Impeccable Nest. And yes, it’s totes amazeballs.
AND like everyone else, we were on a budget (which is a total buzzkill). If you think because we are designers we can use all of those super amazing things we find for clients, well, sorry to expose our secret, we can’t! However, it really forced us to get smart and resourceful on where we found our things, and what we were to choose. But where did we start?
It all started with tile.
We are SOOOO in love with cement tile (especially those at the Cement Tile Shop) but found a pretty cool substitute. This one in fact, from Home Depot AND Wayfair. And for those DIYer’s that LOVE John and Sherry from “Young House Love” they used the blue version in their beach house bathroom (it looks just as awesome too).
We bought this tile a full year before we officially decided to commit to a full blown kitchen gut/remodel. We are the types of people that have to really live with a design before we pull the trigger. These tiles were placed on the countertops for a while, leaned against the wall in the pantry to see if we REALLY liked them. And you know what? We did, and still do.
And last year, as some of you may remember, we decided to demo the entire kitchen with no real plan of what we were going to do with it. So, on January 1st, 2017, we had nothing left in the kitchen. We even took up that ugly tile I’ve been complaining about on the floors. But the hardest part for us was deciding which direction we wanted to go…
We flirted with the idea of a white kitchen, but realized that we would have to change so much of our house and current decor, that it wasn’t realistic. And you know what? I don’t think it really felt like “us” either. We then thought we would do black or grey cabinets, but we ended up with a gorgeous Hickory cabinet, stained in Hazelnut. They’re beauties, and totally timeless.
“BEFORE” the big kitchen reveal…
The 1990s called and they want your “Almond” appliances, peach tile, and corian countertops back. Like now. Oh my goodness, these are photos when we, my boyfriend, now husband, you all know him as design hubby and I hosted our first friendsgiving. Can you say “country kitchen” much! Thank goodness we are so hot looking because this kitchen was so “yikes”. As you will see, we plugged along with this “killer kitchen” for years, one marriage and three children later to be exact.
Seriously…nothing beats builder grade everything in a 1990s new build, but HELLO! It’s 2018, and time to bring that kitchen into this century, with a dope design, and new layout.
Let’s face it, everything was in working order. But just because it “worked” does not mean it should have stayed. How many of you are still working with that peach Home Depot tile on your floors?
We were for years…until just last summer. But wait, we aren’t totally dissing Home Depot. We used another tile from them in the new space. And yes, this amazing Southern New Hampshire client was…us. Yes, Impeccable Nest. And yes, it’s totes amazeballs.
AND like everyone else, we were on a budget (which is a total buzzkill). If you think because we are designers we can use all of those super amazing things we find for clients, well, sorry to expose our secret, we can’t! However, it really forced us to get smart and resourceful on where we found our things, and what we were to choose. But where did we start?
It all started with tile.
We are SOOOO in love with cement tile (especially those at the Cement Tile Shop) but found a pretty cool substitute. This one in fact, from Home Depot AND Wayfair. And for those DIYer’s that LOVE John and Sherry from “Young House Love” they used the blue version in their beach house bathroom (it looks just as awesome too).
We bought this tile a full year before we officially decided to commit to a full blown kitchen gut/remodel. We are the types of people that have to really live with a design before we pull the trigger. These tiles were placed on the countertops for a while, leaned against the wall in the pantry to see if we REALLY liked them. And you know what? We did, and still do.
And last year, as some of you may remember, we decided to demo the entire kitchen with no real plan of what we were going to do with it. So, on January 1st, 2017, we had nothing left in the kitchen. We even took up that ugly tile I’ve been complaining about on the floors. But the hardest part for us was deciding which direction we wanted to go…
We flirted with the idea of a white kitchen, but realized that we would have to change so much of our house and current decor, that it wasn’t realistic. And you know what? I don’t think it really felt like “us” either. We then thought we would do black or grey cabinets, but we ended up with a gorgeous Hickory cabinet, stained in Hazelnut. They’re beauties, and totally timeless.
Based on our cabinet choice, we then created our inspiration board for our new kitchen.
And we created a layout for our new open plan…
Perhaps one of the biggest changes we made to the space was the elimination of the peninsula where our sink and dishwasher were located. THIS really opened up the space, however we were still plagued with what to do with the breakfast nook!
Many homes, it seems as though we have 3-4 dining spaces all right in a row. It starts with the dining room, followed by some eating space at an island, or peninsula, then a kitchen table, and ending with the outdoor table. Do we ever feed that many people at once? Did we really need all of those places to eat?
Also, where do people ALWAYS seem to hang? In the kitchen.
Therefore, time to rethink the layout. And we wouldn’t have been able to do that if we had the old layout in our faces. We had to treat ourselves like our own clients, and came up with the best possible layout for our kitchen reveal.
Here’s what we did:
ENTRY:
We widened the entry from our dining room into our kitchen to incorporate the room into our kitchen.
We’re Emma Carole Paradis and Kimberly Carole, the owners and designers of Impeccable Nest, based in Bedford, New Hampshire. A mother-daughter team with a love of design. Originally from Manhattan Beach, California, now based in Bedford, New Hampshire, we bring a Southern California cool and New England tradition to our design. Not only do we work together…we also live together in a multi-generational home…and a home that they are known to design for others.
