The final reveal

Here it finally is! It is week 8 of the One Room Challenge and the week to reveal the results of a long and stressful kitchen renovation that we just went through. I am delighted to have a kitchen again. I love to cook and work at my kitchen table (even though I have also annexed my guest room and an office upstairs in our house). This has truly been a tumultuous time for us. Not having a kitchen and going through a kitchen remodel is not for sissies. Ok so I was a sissy a few times.

During the big Texas Freeze in February, we were without power and a pipe burst in our kitchen which caused flooding to our kitchen, dining room, living room and laundry. We had to replace the floors and some sheetrock in the adjacent room but the kitchen was a total redo.

WE LOVE OUR NEW KITCHEN. It was a shock mostly to my husband, but now he loves it. I want to thank Emser Tile along with Beyondfloors.net and LG appliances for sponsoring me. I also want to thank Leslie Carothers of Savour Partnership for her help with the appliance sponsorship. This was a tough time for us! We made it. If you even want to come and have a drink with Frida and Me, just let me know. Margaritas on the house!

About me

I am a fun-loving, color-loving interior designer who lives in League City, Texas with my husband, our 17-year-old son and, a giant black dog called Lexi. This is my third One Room Challenge. You can see my backyard makeover from Spring 2020 here. I also did our bedroom in the fall of 2021.

You can read about the previous blogs about my kitchen here:

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7

what exactly is the one room challenge?

We can thank Linda Weinstein for the One Room Challenge. Now in its nineteenth season. The One Room Challenge was started as a means for designers to showcase the projects in their own homes that they would like to finish. Designer homes are often sort of like the cobbler’s kids who have no shoes. Participating as a featured designer is an honor but most of us are guest designers. You can read all the blogs of featured and guest designers here.

The Devil is in the details

This week my kitchen doors finally made it to the house and were installed along with the hardware. I chose a delicate navy clover knob set in a brass frame. Yes I know the green is even more pronounced now but I do love it. Green is not everybody’s cup of tea but for me it is beautiful. There are those you say what if you want to sell your house? Let me ‘splain here. When we moved to this house, my hubby said the only way he will leave this house is feet first. So therefore I say, it is only paint, so we might as well do what we want and love. I did not get my faux roman shade finished but that will not stop me from finishing it this week.

Here are some of my kitchen renovation hacks and tips.

I moved the fridge out of my main work area because we were always in each other’s way. When you have a teenager the fridge gets a lot of traffic! I feel it is still close enough to the rest of the kitchen.

The island was just wrong for our kitchen because there was not enough room get around it without bruises!

I took the cabinets to the ceiling because I did not like the gap above the old cabinets.

Here’s a reminder of the kitchen before:

Backsplash – I took the backplash up to the ceiling above the stove and above the sink. I did not want it to look like I ran out of tile or money (money part is debatable).

Countertop: Only buy the best countertop. I had an ugly granite countertop before. Natural stone was an option again, but nothing was white enough for me (marble was not an option). I had a cheap quartz countertop in our previous house and everything stained it. I went for Cambria, which is a high quality quartz. Quartz is an engineered product made of natural quartz stone crystals and resins. So here’s that tip, the cheaper the quartz, the less quartz and therefore more resins. That causes it to stain easily and also to be less heat resistant.

Odd walls: By using a triangular cabinet, I have two 45 degree angled walls disappear and look square. I did lose some cabinet space by not utilizing the full corner.

Stove: Consider a gas or duel fuel stove. My husband was set on getting an electric stove but during the freeze in February when we had no electricity we could still boil water and cook food. There are gas and induction combo stoves and some even include sous vide.

You have to constantly be on top of the renovation because even the people you know and work with often can let you down when they become too busy.

what has this experience taught me?

This has taught me to be more patient with my clients as it is tough to go through a kitchen renovation. It is better if you are living elsewhere the whole time. The biggest mess is having tile removed. Make sure everything is in stock before you set your heart on tile, appliances and fixtures. It is ok to go bold and, well, go green.

I also realized what I wanted to save from my life in my kitchen. My mom was a fantastic cook and since she lives overseas I could not bring much with me when she moved out of her last home. I did save her copper molds and remember the salmon mousse and desserts she made. Those are in my kitchen to remind me of her as well as some of her cookbooks. My mom is 90 and has dementia now. I can no longer have a conversation with her and I miss that and her sense of humor. Hercriticism I will pass on. Haha.

I like every space in my house to be a fun space. Color brings me joy. I cannot live in a house with another person in mind (the future farmhouse buyer) . My previous kitchen was turqouise. It did not stop our house from selling quickly. One of my kitchens before that was red and yellow. Enjoy your kitchen renovation or contact me to help you!