Kitchen Redo

I've been meaning to post some photos of my kitchen since we re-did the lighting a few months ago but had been waiting until I found a photo of what it looked like when we first moved in so it would be a bit more dramatic. Well I finally found a 'before' shot this weekend, so here it is with the gorgeous (gag) oak cabinets, fluorescent light fixture (not shown, but it was centered on the ceiling), and totally mismatched window treatment:

And here it is now:

We spruced the kitchen up on a pretty tight budget because we don't plan on staying in this house for too long and didn't want to make a big investment, but clearly some things needed to change to make this more livable. We painted the walls a neutral shade, painted the cabinets white, added some cabinet hardware, took down all window treatments (we have block walls in the backyard), got a new faucet, and most importantly, took down the the fluorescent fixture and added some recessed lights and a pendant over the dining table.

Of course there are things I would love to change (like the appliances & formica) but overall I am very happy with how it turned out!

Bold Backsplash

As far as I'm concerned, you can't go wrong with black & white (or circles, but that's another post). There's something so classic and perfect about the contrast that never goes out of style and it can easily be freshened up by adding in pops of color. I'm loving this tile backsplash that I found in the June issue of Living Etc. magazine.

They actually just painted some of the white mosaic tiles black to create this geometric design, but it would be pretty easy to install this pattern if you were starting from scratch. It would also look cool if you used subway tiles for this, plus there would be less grout. I'm not sure if I could live with this backsplash in my home, but I can definately appreciate it's uniqueness.