kitchen redo

BANQUETTE OBSESSED

Something about the Fall season gets us thinking about our dining spaces. Does it do the same for you? Maybe just thinking about Thanksgiving, holiday parties or just cozy chili dinners with the family has us spending more time in our eating nooks. Leah and I are totally guilty of eating dinners on our couches with our husbands while we Netflix binge.
My ( Jenni) husband and I are currently renovating our home, which is the slowest process ever with two kids running around, but we settled on the idea of a banquette design for our eat in kitchen/dining room in one. It seems like the best way to save space, and right now…. we are just loving the look. Here are a few that I am highly inspired by as we try to create our own before the holiday season gets underway.
This first one is probably my top fav! It is industrial looking, and we are loving the idea of the leather sofa. So cozy chic!
Loving the airy feel of this one! Neutrals with touches of black all the way!
Have a great weekend friends! Hope you get to do something that makes you extremely happy!
-J

KITCHEN REDO : BEFORE & AFTER

Yes, the very first bit of imagery you see in this post was how my kitchen looked at one time in my life. Embarrassing, but REAL. LIFE. I must say, the mess alone makes the “after” shot look pretty impressive. Haha!
Ok guys!! I feel like I teased you with a kitchen redo post many months ago. Theeeeeen, I got pregnant, L&L shop has bloomed so beautifully (and busily), and life in general brought us to a lot of roadblocks during this process. However, it is FINALLY done!!!
We started this process as a bit of a challenge! Could we actually do OUR OWN kitchen? on a budget? And paint our own cabinets? Would we totally screw them up? One day, we went and picked out cabinet paint colors just to keep for when we decided to actually got the guts decided to paint the first coat. Little did we know, it would be sooner than later. I think we went that week to buy our first gallon of primer. To be honest, there were MANY times that we wanted to quit during this process, but the good news is that…. you just can’t. Paying someone to finish what we started was just NOT an option.
Our best investment while doing this kitchen was buying a paint sprayer. After lots of research by my hubby, we decided on this one. It didn’t break the bank and it worked beautifully. It really makes your cabinets look like they are professionally done. My biggest tip to anyone taking on a project like this is to be patient, and go through all of the steps…. properly!! Anytime we got antsy and wanted to knock out two coats of paint in one night vs. one…. we hit the brakes and gave ourselves a pep talk. We just really didn’t want anything to set us back! I plan on posting a tutorial on how WE painted our cabinets soon. I promise!!
Ok, enough talk…. here is what our kitchen looks like now!
 ^^DIY cafe curtains HERE. ^^
^^ Barstools from Target, aaaaand they are on sale now! Also, we ended up just paneling out our island. We wanted it to look a little more custom, but didn’t want to rebuild an entire island. We were happy with the way it came out! ^^
^^ Pendant lighting from Ikea ^^

^^ Also, to stress ourselves the freak out cut costs, we opted for a concrete countertop for the kitchen island. We followed this tutorial. Let’s just pretend ours went just as smoothly as this tutorial makes it seem. Oooooook…. moving on….
 ^^ We found our subway tile online… Ebay to be exact! Home Depot had a $2/per tile price tag. No thanks! We ended up getting ours for roughly .50 per tile. We were able to do our entire kitchen for $100. ^^
 ^^ The marble and glass tile was a last minute call. We had purchased it at Habitat for Hummanity Restore months before we started this process. We thought we would use it in a bathroom or something. It costed us $1/sq ft., and it was the perfect focal piece we needed for behind the oven.
^^ You may have seen our open shelf styling post HERE. This still stands to be my favorite part of our kitchen redo. We simply bought corbels from Home Depot, stained them, and painted some slabs of plywood that my husband cut to size. Super simple DIY! ^^
Please comment and email us with any questions that you may need answered regarding a kitchen redo. We are no pros, but through trial and error, have learned a thing or two! We would be happy to share that knowledge!!
**All cabinet hardware was from Home Depot**
BE SURE AND ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY!!! It ends today!!

OPEN SHELVING: STYLED

Hey friends! How was your weekend? My daughter and I hit the road this weekend with my husband, and although we traveled to an extremely ( miserably) hot place, I was just happy to not have to have our little family separated for those two days. I don’t get to travel with him often…. well, like ever actually. So, I usually jump at the chance when there is room on the bus for me and the little.
It has been a pretty quiet Monday for us. We are tying up ALL loose ends on this kitchen this week, and we truly are almost done. I know I have been claiming that for a while now. When you are doing all of the work yourself while juggling a toddler and life in general, it all goes sooooo much slower than you could have ever planned. I am not complaining though! 
I took some time today (nap time) to finally style the open shelving in my kitchen. Up til now, I have just been accumulating dishes and throwing things up there without actually arranging and putting the final touches on everything. I knew I wanted lots of neutrals, with maybe a touch or two of color. 
I moved my rubber spatulas to a vase near my mixer for easy access while prepping baked goods. I am just faking it really, but I love the way it looks to have a little “baking station”

Most of my big plates were in the dishwasher when I shot these photos… oops! I found these recycled water glasses from a local general store here in Nashville called Whites Mercantile. It is a must visit if you are ever in town!

 I finally framed a water color print that I made LAST Thanksgiving…..oh, for our VERY FIRST post. Crazy!!

 Unfortunately, the colors and designs of some of my cookbooks that I love did not go with my kitchen color palette. I took off the cover to my Joy of Cooking book, which had bright red and navy on it, and it revealed this beautiful white and gold perfection! Then, I wrapped another cookbook of mine (which was bright yellow) in a charcoal floral wrapping paper. The three books look a little more cohesive sitting up there now.

NO SEW DIY CAFE CURTAINS

Hey friends! Today, I have a super easy cafe curtain tutorial for you! I apologize in advance for the lighting on these pics. Shooting a window is not the easiest for me. One of two home projects I will be sharing tutorials on. My husband and I have been redoing our kitchen for the last couple of months. It has been a long process, and we are 80% finished. I can’t wait to share our final reveal. In the meantime, I figured I could show you how I treated our ONE window that we have in our actual kitchen. We originally had blinds that were way too bulky in the window, but they just had to go. This DIY is super easy, makes such an impact and we are both in love with the way it looks. The best part is that it involves NO SEWING! Not even stitch witchery type “sewing”. 
I simply purchased a cafe rod and curtain rings from Target ( maybe $10 total). I then went on a hunt for some great napkins or even tea towels of some sort. I wanted something with a pattern, but still neutral in the coloring. I found these lovelies on sale at Anthropologie. No need to look any further!
So, grab your supplies…..

Start with ironing your napkins first to ensure that they lay properly. 
Place your clips (spaced how you would like) across your napkin. I used 4 clips on each napkin.
 String them onto the cafe rod!
 Hang your cafe rod ( about 3/4 of the way high for my window) until you get your desired look. 
Voila!
BTW, we are currently working on a concrete countertop for our island. Say a little prayer…. we are not professionals over here. YouTube and Pinterest have been our kitchen remodeling teachers. Big shout out to all of you who have screwed this up and lived to tell us what NOT to do gone before us. 
Happy Tuesday!!
-J