September Pixie

This is our kitchen in all of its glory. It’s pretty, its functional, but it’s really not our style. When we bought our house we knew we wanted to replace the floors and the counter tops but we didn’t talk much about redoing the entire kitchen until lately. The problem we have is that my husband has very distinct modern taste and I have very traditional taste.. and the two do not often blend well. I’ve found I am a lot more versatile in my styles ranging from French bistro to European traditional.. we kind of agree on the neutral Tuscan style but not enough to really call it home.

Then my secret love of watching those trashy reality shows gave us some help. Do you watch Real Housewives of O.C.? well, if you do, you might recognize Tamera Barny’s kitchen… that’s pretty much the only kitchen we have ever both agreed on.. so we’re going to run with it. We want wooden floors through out the entire lower level, husband likes lighter neutral woods, I like darker with more character, but I think his idea blends better with the kitchen we’ve chosen, so I gave in.. we want stainless steel appliances, and quartz counter tops, and I want a matching backsplash.. so here you have it.. we are hoping to turn this..

into this..

However, it doesn’t stop there.. we’re looking into fixing up our backyard too.. the previous home owners basically landscaped with mulch… there’s no flowering plants in the back yard at all.. just trees, mulch, and some river rocks… see?

Now that you see what we’re working with.. we’ve decided that we really do like the mulch but I want flowers back there… its a little too plain for me the way it currently is and the husband actually agrees!! so we’ve browsed around the web until we found a garden we like and have used this as inspiration… and we’re just now getting started!

We’ve just laid down 6 yards of mulch between the front yard and the back (the front yard actually needs very little work, it’s pretty!), and are looking into how to landscape this type of yard so that the mulch lays in front of the plants…

so there you have it.. this is what my summer is going to look like!