Monday, December 5, 2011

What I've Been Up To: The Kitchen

OK, so I've written about a million insightful blog posts about how staging a house is almost exactly like writing a book and submitting it to agents and editors, but I'm too high on paint fumes to put my thoughts together.

Instead a preview of what I've been up to the past week:

Here's what my kitchen has looked like for the past 6 years:


Not a bad kitchen, but the red was definitely a little dated and probably made the space look smaller than it already is.

Here's the after: (Forgive my craptastic photography. That noise you hear is Stacey weeping.)




Stacey helped me pick a light neutral grey color for the walls which I LOVE. I used Behr paint and did it myself because my husband thinks all of this house staging business is complete nonsense, so I'm on a strict budget.


For the curtains I bought a Dwell Studio shower curtain from Target ($27) and cut it in half. I hung it on the existing curtain rod using shower hooks. I loved the colors and the linen lets tons of light in. 



Instead of curtain hooks (or whatever the hell they're called) I bought two spoons at Target for $1.99 and bent them. We had Yavuz (the best handy man on the planet) over to fix a broken window and he drilled holes in the spoons and mounted them for me free of charge!

I'm stealing a lot of these ideas from Pinterest. Click here to follow my board. I'll post more pictures as I finish staging the dining room and complete some wall art for the kitchen.

Lucky (or not so lucky) for you guys, there will be a lot more where these came from because I'm tackling the living room and family room this week!

17 comments:

Laura Pauling said...

Looks terrific! I love the spoon idea. :)

Are you trying to sell your house? Did I miss something.

Great job. I'm impressed. My kitchen needs a total do over.

Dianne K. Salerni said...

Very nice job! It looks updated and bright and appealing. The red was not unattractive, but a lot of buyers might feel strongly against it. Better to have something neutral.

And staging ABSOLUTELY works. We're not selling our house, but we do rent a ski house in the Poconos. I staged all the pictures that appear on our rental website, and those pictures sell the place!

Christina Lee said...

LOVE it-- the curtains pull the space together and how clever with the spoons!!

Stina said...

The trick with the spoon is really cool. Stephenie Meyer should try that with folks. :D

Katie Anderson said...

THis is awesome! Love that gray!

JEM said...

It looks beautiful! I'm actually amazed how nice it looked before, considering mine is usually a mess of papers and shopping bags and dirty placemats. And I don't even have kids. No excuse...

Nicole Zoltack said...

Nice! Definitely gonna take notes for whenever we can afford to go house shopping and try to sell our house.

Sarah Allen said...

That bent spoon hook thing is kind of the best idea ever. I want one :)

Sarah Allen
(my creative writing blog)

Ashley @ Book Labyrinth said...

It looks great! Also, I swear we have the same (or almost the same) light fixture in our dining room.

Tere Kirkland said...

Love a neutral gray paint color for the kitchen! And think of all the painting practice you're getting in before you have a new house to decorate!

I agree, staging works! Some people just can't see the potential past the paint color when house searching.

Kerri Cuev said...

Nice ideas! I think staging a house is a good idea to make a sale! Good luck with the living room.

Marsha Sigman said...

I LOVE it! Maybe it's time for me to change my walls from that sponge painting stage I was in a few years back...

Anna Staniszewski said...

Wow, I would have never thought to use spoons like that. It looks awesome!

Angela Hood-Ross said...

I love it! Such a difference. And I am so going to steal the spoon tie back idea for the curtains.

Krispy said...

The spoon idea is wonderful! I love it! Okay, totally checking out your pinterest board!

Admin said...

I like it before and after.

Christa Desir said...

You never sleep, do you? My kitchen looks like Grey Gardens. *weeps*

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