I am Ilse Benard, fun loving, color loving Interior Designer in League City, Texas. I lost my kitchen, living room and dining room in the big Texas Freeze of 2021. A pipe burst in our ceiling and we got 2 inches of water in our house before we were able to shut the water off. This is week 6 of my story of my kitchen renovation. I chose green cabinets for thrills.

What is the One Room challenge?`

The One Room Challenge is a bi-annual event that takes place in the Spring and the Fall. Currently in its 19th season it was started by Linda Weinstein of Calling it Home. The event started because so many designers never have the time to do their own homes. This is event, for me, is totally dedicated to getting my home the way I want it and love it. Well nevermind the fact that I would just love to have kitchen to cook in. I love to cook and entertain. I will be ready once my kitchen is finished and my appliances are in.

Thank you Better Homes and Gardens for being the official media sponsor.

There are twenty featured designers participating. You can read about the featured designers and see their progress here. I am a guest participant for this event. This is my third One Room Challenge. You can read about my final reveal for Fall 2020 here or Spring 2020. Read all the blogs for the One Room Challenge here.

What Happened in Week 6?

Here I am in week 6 of my kitchen renovation. If you would like to see what I started with you can read about all the blogs I wrote from the beginning up to this point. Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5. In reality this is week 24 of my kitchen renovation and (believe it or not) it is still not finished. I am very excited as this is the homestretch for me. I have really lived the One Room Challenge in slow motion since February the 16th.

What countertop did i choose?

The kitchen countertops were installed this week. Whoa! I love it.

I had many choices. My biggest requirement was that I wanted white countertops since the cabinets are very bright. I love quartzite but I could not find anything that I was in love with and could afford. I’m not a lover of granite. There is too much movement in the white granites for me. Black or other colors like grey or purple in granite was not appealing to me either. Marble, the other choice, for me it is totally impractical.

I have read the news about workers getting sick from working with the dust from resins. Research proved to me that if I used a high quality manufacturer, the amount of quartz would be more therefore the resins would be a whole lot less. The quartz countertop I had a few years ago stained very easily (It was clearly the cheap crap).

I chose to use Cambria. This is predominately white countertop with some navy, black and gold in it. I LOVE IT!

What else, what else? you say

I bought a cute table to put in my kitchen. There was a round table in there before but since we added an overhang to the peninsula, the old table would be too big for the space. I bought it off the floor from my favorite local furniture store. Ordering something that might not be delivered in time was not an option for me. I also have to admit that despite the fact that I have an office upstairs I love working at the kitchen table.

What did not happen this week?

My tile guy could not do the backsplash for me this week. I postponed the appliance delivery to next week because the hood installation requires that the tile backsplash be finished.

What is the greatest thing that first world people don’t know about?

Having a sink in the kitchen that actually has running water and a drain! Yes People that is what happened this week. Four months without a sink and now this!!!

I don’t mind washing dishes by hand anymore!

Don’t take life for granted.. A big disaster made me really appreciate the little things….

What’s next?

This week (fingers crossed) the backsplash will be tiled, the appliances will be installed and the doors finished. I can’t wait!!

Be kind to one another. Life is short.

Ilse

Pin this…