My Dream Home...

There is a special place in my heart for my grandparent's house. My grandma and grandpa built that house with their own two hands. I've heard countless stories about that house's construction...even ones of my grandma helping to lay floorboards even when she was pregnant.

That house has seen a lot over the years. So much, in fact, that I can't sum them up here. Stories I feel that need their own separate posts. Stories that make the house a Home.

So why an entire blog dedicated to a house built 60+ years ago? After having a few conversations with my Grandma, I've made it known how much I want them to leave the house to me. And I don't want to come off as greedy or even morbid, but I really do love that house and it pains me to think of someone else living in it who doesn't cherish it nearly as much as I do.

The other reason I've decided to start a blog about this house is because when it does become mine, it is going to need some updates. And I don't want to make any rash decisions that I will end up regretting. You see, I've never been much of a ig-scale planner. Take my wedding, for example. I know plenty of girls who had every last detail of their wedding planned by the time they were 14. Me? I still didn't know what I wanted the day of the ceremony. (Seriously, I was scrolling through my iTunes library for our first dance song the morning of when I was getting my hair done. Which I also didn't have a plan for...I just told my friend Marcie to do whatever she thought would be good.) My point? I figure if I start pulling ideas together now, when I have the house (and the money to update it), I will have a good, solid idea of how I want each room to turn out.

So, here it goes. My Dream Home, Phase I: Ideas!

And yes, I am aware that the timestamp on this post also says it's 2025, but I wanted this post to be first in the line-up :-)

Kitchen Cabinets...

I think this is going to be one of my first orders of business when it comes to the kitchen. Or not. No, I guess the green tile will have to go first. But this one is a biggie. The cabinets are all a very dark wood and haven't changed a bit since the home's original construction in the late 1950's. (Though I will have to find a place for the original cabinets as they were hand-crafted by my Grandpa.) The hardware is all pretty shot, too, as I think most of that is also original.

So for the upper cabinets, I am a big fan of the glass cabinet look.



I'm also partial to this because my formal dinnerware is yellow "depression glass," and I just think it would look oh-so-beautiful amid all of the white if it could pop through the glass cabinet fronts.

But here's what I'm not crazy about or need:
1. Frosted glass. The dishes are glass and they aren't a bold enough color to show through a frosted glass.
2. Inner-lighting. That's just frivolous. I don't need my plates lit.
3. Patterned. stained, or etched glass. Same arguments as the frosted glass. The dishes will be enough of an accent on their own.

And what I'm impartial to or indecisive about:
1. See that first picture where the inside of the cupboard is painted blue? I'm not sure if I like/need that or not. It's a neat place to have an accent color, but I don't know if it will detract away from the yellow glass dishes.
2. I don't think I want ALL of the upper cupboards to be glass. I do have small children and will probably have more (and grandkids eventually) and will need a cupboard for all of their plastic and mismatched dishes. Just not sure which ones I want to leave solid and which should be glass paneled.

The Kitchen...

As of March 13th, 2011, I want a white kitchen. There isn't a whole lot of natural light coming into the kitchen, so I think having a strong presence of white will help brighten it up. And I just think white kitchens hit the three C's: clean, classic, and Chic.

Inspiration:





These are just some random ones from around the web. Specifically, though, I've always been a fan of Giada DiLaurentiis's kitchen on the Food Network. All white and pretty. And Ina Garten's, obviously. Even if her show is called "Barefoot Contessa," which grosses me out just the tiniest bit.