Underfunded Heiress: March 2011

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

A White Kitchen To Inspire

Are you one of those people who just loves open shelving in a kitchen? Although I understand the love, I'm not in that group, entirely anyway.

Although pretty and great for grabbing something quickly, open shelving drives me crazy. I love the look of "open" only with glass doors instead. You can show some texture and color of your dishes, etc., but you don't have the problem of dust. And for most people there is also the grease in the air from cooking meats.

As you can tell, I'm not in love with doing more cleaning than necessary.

Another great idea from the kitchen featured here is the closed storage above the cabinets. When the owner planned her kitchen, she had the architect include a very high ceiling for the kitchen. This presents the problem of how to treat the cabinets in such a way as to keep them in scale, but still usable.

Excellent solution here.

A few years ago I feel back in love with the simple beauty of whites and silvers, again. We do go through whims of loving colors and combinations of colors don't we? After going through a strong white phase several years ago, I really craved color, especially the colors of the French and Italian countryside. Too much white is still a bit stark for me, but I continue to long for more whites in my decorating.

This kitchen utilized more expensive nickle finishes, but of course you can achieve much the same beauty with chrome. I never thought I'd come back to loving chrome. But you just never know what you will find appealing as time goes by. Most interesting is that this kitchen was completed at least 7 years ago, and still looks quite undated.

If I were planning a house right now, I would love to have a kitchen window like this one below. Even a smaller version, in a smaller space would be wonderful.

I especially like the wall finish. Mine has been golden yellow for a number of years, and will be painted a parchment color. This aged finish is like done like the gold one I'm painting over. So I will most likely do something like it again.

Although this is a big budget kitchen for most of us, it has lots of simple ideas to make a kitchen simply beautiful as well as highly functional.

I had white kitchen cabinets for many years. For my busy, and I guess messy, family it was so much work. I was constantly cleaning coffee and juice stains, scrubbing off dirty paw (kid and adult ones) prints, and touching up the paint from all the wear and tear. When I did the faux bois wood paint treatment on my cabinets, it was wonderful not to have all every little thing show up and look grimy on them.

Somtimes I think about painting them white again. But not today.

{Owner: Christine Ryan. Kitchen Designer: Eline Nealer. from Beautiful Kitchens 2003}

Monday, March 14, 2011

Lovely rooms

Do you prefer living in a fancy space or a quiet like library space? Do you want people to feel free to put there feet up on your furniture? Does your living space reflect you or is it designed after a picture in a magazine? When you walk into your living space are you happy and calm?

A living room should really take on the name, “living room” and you should feel comfortable in this space. Being comfortable to some is being surrounded by family pictures and lots of candles. To others its being surrounded by glamorous accessories and fancy furniture. Whatever your taste is dont be afraid to turn this space into your dream space! Design is taking risks and creating something beautiful.

Below is a collection of living spaces that I hope will trigger some thought. Happy living space day!