There’s no room in the house that requires more thoughtful design than the kitchen. A well designed kitchen should look minimal, yet the functions it must perform are complex, so designing one is like mental Tetris, and I REALLY love doing it. I enjoy obsessing over the necessary shelf clearance for tall cooking wine bottles… heming and hawing for hours over whether polished chrome and polished nickel can be used interchangeably.
I hit the rental lottery with my current kitchen. It’s definitely not a designer kitchen, but it’s bright, functional, and big (for NYC). All my appliances are clean and white, I have pull-out shelves in my cabinets, and I have a beautiful view of a 100 year old giant oak tree. My apartment kitchen beats the kitchen I grew up in on all fronts. I really have nothing to complain about. I already put quite a bit of work into making it decent and at this point, I can call it “done.”
As they say, an idle brain is the devil’s workshop, so I simply cannot stop myself from checking out other sexy kitchens on the side. I feel a bit like I’m cheating on my current home by pretend-shopping for my future (nonexistent) house. I have thousands and thousands of tear sheets and images saved on my computer, but every now and then I see a room that sticks. This is one of them:
*SIGH* She’s a beauty. This kitchen was designed by Jessica Helgerson who is pretty much design Jesus IMO.
My future bank account is screwed because now my future house must have a black and white kitchen that’s just the perfect mix of traditional, contemporary, industrial, and Moorish. I have no idea where that stove is from, but for all I know it costs more than what I make in a year. (Although I did find this similar looking model at William Sonoma Home which is expensive but not like sell-your-liver-on-the-black-market expensive.)
I thought to myself…what if I had a fixer upper and wanted to achieve this look for less. Is it doable for $20K? Obviously it would depend on a lot of factors, but assuming that my boyfriend is a master carpenter, and assuming I’d be willing to completely forgo my social life and painstakingly lay tile for the rest of my life… I’m gonna say, SURE why not.
I went on an online bargain hunting frenzy and put together a little board of goodies that I may or may not buy one day. Honestly, it’s really ALL ABOUT THE TILE. Gotta have it.
Atlas cup pulls from amazon
Cosmas knobs from amazon
Vigo undermount stainless sink from overstock
Contemporary chrome pull down kitchen faucet from amazon
Walnut butcher block from lumber liquidators
2 aluminum and glass pendants from ebay (ugh, someone beat me to it)
3×6 carrera marble honed subway tile from amazon
Reed medium walnut / charcoal counter stools from overstock
Treviso tile form villa lagoon tile
Pommegranite print from society6
Since I don’t have a house yet, let’s assume that the “big reveal” for the project will happen sometime between 2016 and 2020.
Happy New Year all! XO
