This post is sponsored by Home Hardware. We are thrilled to be working with them throughout our entire renovation process.
Paint on your walls is like the final touches… it’s like putting on that bright pink lipstick to finish off your power look.
And then there are all those other fun little flourishes that complete the look – like the finish on the sink and faucet, the way we mounted the hardware, the choices we made for the style of the lighting.
All these small design choices are what make the kitchen space truly unique and truly ours.
So I figured I’d walk you through the decision making process for some of these seemingly small things that pack a big punch.
Choosing the Kitchen Paint Colours
I have to say that I agonized a bit over the colour choices for this kitchen. The back wall can be seen from almost every other room in the house, which meant that I needed to pick a colour that made sense everywhere (not just in the kitchen).
Our foyer wall is painted a lime-yellow and we have a super colourful rug in the living room. The dining room has a plaid wall in various hues of beachy-blues.
I pulled colours from the green and blue families and even toyed with a purple-plum. But ultimately, I went with a tried and true colour that just feels SO aligned with my personal style.
Fresh-ie C36-5-1572-0 by Beauti-Tone is where we landed for the back wall. And while it’s technically a green, it reads really blue and it turned out perfectly. It’s a gorgeous backdrop for our family photos and my little baking rack.
For the second accent colour, we kept with the same colour card, but went two hues deeper to Tropical Tale C36-2-1569-3. It’s a deep teal that’s a little more subdued than the Joyful Tears C13-1-0683-0 teal I painted in my downstairs office.
And, we kicked it up a notch by using chalkboard paint! It’s the perfect space-saving solution for our weekly meal menu and shopping list – and it adds a super fun little play area for the kids too.
Choosing metallic finishes
If you’ve been following along with the entire renovation series, you’ll know that a major sticking point for me was the old sink. For starters, it wasn’t centered on the window, but beyond that it was shallow, and the faucet was totally non-functional.
When we upgraded our sink for the renovation, I knew I wanted a double sink with some good depth. I mean, who wants a sink that doesn’t fit a pasta pot?!
I also really wanted a faucet with a gooseneck to make rinsing and cleanups so much easier.
We ended up choosing a stunning stainless-steel sink with a modern square design. It came with sink grates that fit in the bottom of both sinks … and I love them!
The faucet we chose is a sleek design to match the square sink and the pull-out rinser has been an absolute game-changer.
We went back and forth on the overall finish of the sink and faucet but ended
Choosing the Lighting
Because our kitchen is in the middle of the house, there really is only one window in the space. Most of the light filters in from the dining room and a bit from the living room.
Needless to say, choosing lighting that made sense was a priority for us.
The main areas of the kitchen are now lit with LED recessed lights – which make a massive difference in the brightness!
But the one place we had some fun was with the hanging pendant light over the sink. I went with an oil-rubbed bronze pendant with a clear glass shade. It hangs in front of the only window and the glass lets us still capture the view of the yard and water beyond.
The oil rubbed bronze is a strong visual that also matches the hardware we chose for the cabinet and drawer pulls.
up with brushed nickel. It’s soft and not too shiny. The slim profile of the sink and faucet are also much easier to clean than the old ones we had!
How we chose to mount the hardware
Speaking of which, who knew there were so many options for how to hang cabinet and drawer hardware!?
With Shaker-style cabinets, you can hang the pulls in the recess, or above it. And the cabinet pulls can be mounted either in line with the corner of the doors or in line with the recess in the door.
So many options.
We decided to mount the pulls above the recess in the door to give the space a more modern look. It’s such a small design tweak that I think made a major difference in the look and feel of the whole kitchen!
This kitchen renovation has a lot of elements to it, so be sure to read about how we organized the whole thing (during a pandemic!), how we managed the demolition and also more about the custom island on wheels we had built to fit our small-ish space.
