Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Kitchen Reveal


Welcome to my kitchen!  Penny at  Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen is hosting a Kitchen Reveal Day today.  She invited all bloggers to share their kitchens.  I was eager to participate.  I feel my house has been a bit over exposed this past year, but what the heck, it actually looks good by our standards, so let's share!


If you follow my blog or know me, you will know our house was featured on A&E's show Sell This House this past year.  Our kitchen was not one of the rooms they selected for the redesign, but they did repaint it for us so the 1st floor rooms could flow.  Our house did not sell after the show, the market still sucks.  We recently "moved back in" or rather stopped living the clutter free, staged life of a house on the market.  While the house still looks good, we don't keep up that tv-crew-ready look anymore.  We have two little boys, it was exhausting trying to keep up the designer finish.  The fridge is covered with magnets again and the living room is full of toys, but that is what makes it a home.


In the title line of my blog I state my kitchen is small; that is a bit misleading, it is quite big.  I should rephrase that to share the real truth; my kitchen is quite unorganized.  I need an organizational consultant.  Actually, I have a friend that does household consulting, she took one look in my cabinets and told me to box up all but 4 of each of the fancy glasses I have taking up an entire wall of cupboards.  Box up my wine, margarita and martini glasses?  I really had no other response to this advice but to kick her out of my kitchen.  Maybe my priorities could use some adjustment  which in turn would help my cabinet organization, but really... get rid of the margarita glasses?


This is the only cabinet reveal I will share, but it should give you the idea of how whacked my organizational process is.  Yes, this is the liquor/arts and crafts cabinet.  It remains locked at all times as we can't have the children getting drunk and playing with Play-Doh.


My dream home will have one of those cool "command centers" in the kitchen.  The desk where you can keep the family computer and cook books.  I have a tiny corner that I share with the fish, the bread box and the cookie jar.  This is where all blogs begin, they usually end on the couch after the kids go to bed.


The very best part of my kitchen is this little window into the living room.  So many of the houses we have looked at here in New England have terrible kitchen to living room layouts.  It is key to me that the kitchen have flow into the main living space so we can all be together even when cooking is going on.

Now you have seen the pictures of my kitchen all cleaned up and pretty, here is a typical day in my kitchen with a not so typical look for my husband.


MAD CHAOS!
That is my kitchen.

10 comments:

  1. Too funny Stephanie! Thanks for participating in the kitchen reveal. I love your warm, inviting kitchen and the fact that you are keeping it real. Last year we did the kitchen reveal before Thanksgiving and some of us showed our kitchens after the feast with dishes piled high.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing your kitchen with us especially the last shot - I considered doing that but didn't have the guts and if Bev found out I would be toast.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just found you through Penny's kitchen reveal (I showed mine today as well). So much fun. i am just now starting to enter a few contest (the winner of the Pom Dinner Party is supposed to be announced today and I am on pins and needles). I am heading off to see your archives, steal a few ideas.

    Good luck with the contests. Hope we are next to each other at a cook off final round soon

    Dave

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for sharing your kitchen. I love that you shared "inside" your cabinets. You are a brave and confident woman. I didn't even think of doing that in my reveal.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love the liquor/craft cupboard! LOL I'd love to have countertops like yours - and love the color of them, too. I like having a kitchen open to the living area, too. Used to have it in our other house, but not this one. Thanks for the tour, Stephanie!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Loved your kitchen and your style. Hubby looks cute too so I'll be back. Thanks to Penny for directing me here.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Stephanie,
    You have a warm and inviting kitchen, I love the table in the middle of the room. I could sit there and drink coffee all day long. And that last shot is how my kitchen looks most of the time. It is clean one minute and looks like a bomb went off the next. Penny could host a REAL kitchen reveal where we have to take shots of the every day look! Robin

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you everyone for your support. It is exciting to have new visitors! I have enjoyed looking in on all the beautiful kitchens on Penny's blog. I had to throw the picture in of my husband, it is a test to see if he actually reads my blog. This was fun! Thanks Penny for the opportunity.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'll have to watch for that A&E show up here. Your kitchen is so homey - like a real farm kitchen with the table in the centre.
    Do you think that perhaps you should have a dress and deportment code for your hired help?!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Guess I need to start reading more, I figured since I live it I didn't need to.

    ReplyDelete