Prettying Up a Builder Kitchen: One Room Challenge Week 5

Seriously, those were the fastest 5 weeks ever. Well, at least I will have a brand, spanking new kitchen in just one week.  If you aren’t sure of what I speak, Linda from Calling it Home created a challenge where bloggers reno/decorate/DIY a space in six weeks. I tackled my kitchen (not a total reno, more of a makeover) and you can catch up on the four prior posts here plus see the embarrassing before photos.

So what was accomplished this past week?  Let’s see.

The antique mirror was installed on my existing cabinet doors and I am in love with them. My daughter thought they looked dirty (but she is only 12 and has never really seen antique mirror before 🙂 ) and that’s because I chose a very light antiquing.  I didn’t want it to look too busy or mottled as  I think if you go too heavy with the antiquing, it can look like 70’s smoked mirror – not the look I was going for.

The beauty of it probably doesn’t translate in my phone photo above and just ignore the finger prints. I’m sure the professional photos taken next week will do it justice.

My carpenter also installed the riser and crown so that now my cabinets extend to the ceiling as you can see in the photo above.  It really makes the kitchen feel more grand and I would highly recommend that you do this if your cabinets are just shy of the ceiling.

And then he created panels that mimic my door style to dress up my flat, plain peninsula like so:

The past week wasn’t without its share of mishaps but I won’t bore you with the details as everything turned out great in the end. With any reno/makeover, you can always count on something not going quite according to plan.

So, that’s it for now. My wallpaper guy will be here this morning, my electrician on Friday (to complete the electrical and hang my pendant) and hopefully the grout cleaner on Monday (yikes – forgot to book that).  Then my photographer will be here on Tuesday to shoot it. I still have to source some styling items on the weekend but we are almost there.

Go check out what the rest of the One Room Challenge Linking Participants are up to here.

Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween tomorrow!