Good morning, friend!
The birds are chirping. The sun is shining. The coffee is hot. It’s a beautiful spring morning here at Holiday House! So, let’s do something fun and talk design, shall we?
My favorite part (and maybe PJ’s, too) of any renovation is the design process.
Though the time for picking out the finishings is still a ways off, I thought it would be fun to show you kind of where our heads are at as far as kitchen layout/style/feel for Holiday House. Have you seen the Nancy Myers’ classic It’s Complicated? I have always been so in love with Meryl Streep’s character’s kitchen in that movie, from the freestanding island with the marble countertop to the open shelving and sink skirt. What’s crazy, though, is that the layout of this kitchen matches Holiday House’s exactly, down to the stove up against the right wall (though, admittedly, the kitchen in the movie is a lot bigger than Holiday House’s and is nestled within a ginormous California Spanish-style ranch home that Grace, a baker, lives in).
I think the thing we both love about her kitchen is how pieced together it feels, like someone just put this here and that there and it magically turned out magazine-ready (though, obviously, it most definitely wasn’t, and a lot of precise care and design went into creating it on a soundstage). It just works. It’s not overly fancy, but it’s obviously gorgeous. It’s not pretentious, but it’s definitely sophisticated. It’s just a stunning, functional space where everything seems to fit in its place.
Similar layouts, right?
We’re both envisioning a sort of very European-inspired kitchen when it comes to colors and overall feel, but one that also lends itself to the green, rolling hills of the farm and the sense of nature they bring.
We want open shelving on the left side of the sink for easy access to the dishes we use the most. Upper cabinets almost always make a kitchen feel smaller (we have two big ones on the sink wall in our kitchen back at home, and while we love them, we’ve talked for years about removing them and putting open shelving there instead). We’ll also be putting a much, much bigger window over the sink area to let in even more light and to get a better view of the land outside.
PJ found an island on FB Marketplace a few months back that fits perfectly in the kitchen and is giving us so much more counter space. For a few months we weren’t able to use it because of the heater that was there before (and there was also an issue where there was a giant hole in the floor where a wall had previously been- an entirely different story- but PJ fixed it and all is well now), but thanks to PJ (always thanks to PJ!), he demoed and moved the heater so the island fits perfectly. It’s now where we all eat and where I make meals and it’s so nice to have more counter space. It also makes the kitchen feel like an actual kitchen! Weird how that happens.
The new island will separate the kitchen from the dining room (again, just like the kitchen in It’s Complicated), similar to the picture below.
PJ was working all weekend on Holiday House reframing walls and tearing down old paneling. I absolutely love to watch him work and come up with new ideas in his head that he then implements in almost lightning speed. We’re both so excited to have a functioning, enjoyable-to-be-in kitchen at Holiday House that the whole family can cook and eat in.
One day at a time!!!
(all images via Pinterest)