Need a New Kitchen But Can’t Get Myself Off Of the Kitchen Floor!

Dear Laurel,

I have lived in my apartment for over four years and I think it’s time I did something about my kitchen. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s just not great.

But the more compelling reason to do something is that my appliances are all dying. And the dishwasher. Please don’t ask me about that. I’ve had the repair guy out twice to fix both appliances. The nuker squeeks as it turns around. That can’t be good. And the range. pffft.

The counters are silestone and a kind of tan like the color of Cover Girl foundation.

The cabinets are Ikea and they aren’t terrible, but on closer inspection…

I don’t know if it’s better to do the kitchen cabinet refacing thing or just gut the place and star afresh.

Oh, the floor needs to go too.

I think.

But I’ve become obsessed with floors. Well, my kitchen floor!

Encaustic cement, hexagon, square mosaics… patterns, colors, patterns…

Obsessed I say.

You’re the expert, so I hope that you can help.

Love and Kisses,

Laurel

 

Uhhhh… Laurel? Are you okay??? Did you just write a letter to yourself and sign it too?

 

Yes. What of it?  You know… I have meetings with myself too!

Anyway, you knew it was coming. I more than hinted about it on Sunday.

The trapezoidal kitchen.

It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen, but nothing I would ever do.

Today, I had a phone meeting with my friend and mentor, Veronika Miller who owns Modenus, a fabulous kitchen and bath resource for designers and design enthusiasts, alike. She also runs a couple of rocking blog tours every year. I was incredibly honored to be invited to the last one to see KBIS– (Kitchen and Bath Industry Show) last January.

Veronika knows people, if you get my drift. And, they listen to her.

But there’s no free ride here. I have much work to do before any of this can happen. So, my first assignment is to create a massive wish list.

But first, we need some of the usual inspo.

Granted, there’s no shortage of kitchen blog posts the last few years on laurel home, but this time it’s different. Just put in ‘kitchen’ in the sidebar search box and they’ll all pop up. Or look under kitchens under categories– also in the sidebar.

 

Here’s the deal folks.

There are three levels of pain.

Pain Level one – mildly inconvenient and fairly quick

Do a cosmetic refresh of the essentials. For the kitchen that is replacing all appliances, new faucet and hopefully new hardware. Plus a new soffit over the cabinets. Paint of course. In this scenario the floor stays, the counters stay.

For the bathroom, it would be a new vanity, paint and maybe a few other small things.

 

Pain Level two-

It would be everything in one, except the cabinets would be refaced. You can reface Ikea cabinets through Semi Handmade doors. Not sure this makes sense for me.

There is no level two change the bathroom floor but it still would need to coordinate with the faux travertine kitchen floor.  #nothappenin’

 

Paint Level three-

Pull up the backhoe and clear it all out. Plus a 2 – 4 month stint at an Airbnb. (please don’t forget that I am a delicate flower!) :]

This would only be possible with the generous contribution from sponsors of my reno. Is that possible that there are vendors who will give me free stuff in exchange for me writing about it?

Yes. It is possible. But I would still have pay for the labor. I have a strict policy of having other people do it themselves as much as possible. ;]

But in the end, the old girl would be restored to all of her former 1920 glory. Hmmm… maybe this old girl should go for some renovations too? A little spackle might work wonders!

Of course, we will do the fabulous mural in the hall from Mural Sources.

 

 

Now, for the living room.

 

Well, you’re going to have to wait to hear about that.

I have an idea that makes my toes curl!

Laurel?

Yes…

Can we see your kitchen, please?

Oh yes, of course.

 

Here it is. I know. Hate the hardware. It’s all from Ikea. Roman shade is Barbara Barry’s Indo Day.

Yes, I know… weird light fixtures, but they work. I was thinking if I stayed with Pain level number one, I might do these cool pendants.

Capiz Shell Pendant from Serena and Lily

Only $298. I think that’s a good price for these.

ugh.

I’ll take the La Cornue please.

Current counter Silestone in the cat gromitz colorway on the bottom

The exquisite Calacatta Gold in God’s gift to man colorway on the top.

Remember when we discussed kitchen counters?

Close up of my kitchen floor–

 

fake travertine (ceramic) kitchen floor with real marble inlay. But it looks like they ran out because the pattern changed.

 

This is what I’d like to have. Lovely kitchen by designer Sophie Burke.

I collected enough stuff for at least three blog posts, but I discovered something this week while on the hunt for the perfect kitchen floor and I’m not sure I should tell you or not.

 

Why?

Well, because once you start, you may not be able to pull yourself away.

I couldn’t.

Okay, I’ll tell you and maybe if there are enough of us, we can start a 12-step group.

It’s on Villa Lagoona Tile. You might recall they were in this post about encaustic cement tiles.

They have a thing on there where you can not only create your own unique color scheme, you can even tweak the designs by not filling in all of the lines.

I discovered this a couple of days ago and it was only a matter of minutes before my addiction took hold.

It’s the Villa Lagoona Tile Design Tool

 

Welcome, they say.

Sure, sure…

This is maybe half of the designs they have that you can customize with the ‘tool.’

It only took about 20  2 minutes for my addiction to take hold.

(I asked them on instagram if they have a 12 step group for this.)

 

I found this pattern called Zarzuela and before I knew it, it was 2:00 AM.

I mean… Greek Key, Chinoiserie theme and laurel leaves in one graphic? Maybe I can turn this into a logo! haha.

And then the colors.

They have got to be kidding!

This is like sending a designer into the Garden of Eden after not eating for a week!

And here’s a small sampling of white I did.

This was the first and then proceeded to do about 20 more– of this one pattern. I’m not exaggerating.

Here are a few of them.

Oh, I did dozens of other patterns too.

Dozens

but I’m not going to show them all to you, because I assume that you have other things to do, like put your kids to bed or tweeze your eyebrows or something.

I did some smaller scaled ones too.

It made me happy. But it also got my creative juices pumping and I fully realized after day two that all of this as incredibly gorgeous as it is, would overwhelm my funny little kitchen. But you knew that already, didn’t you? (there is one, however, that I’m considering for the bathroom)

(This one.)

And Villa Lagoon also has tons of in stock patterns. It looks like an awesome source! And I am definitely adding them to the next update of Laurel’s Rolodex!

 

 

I also found dozens of wonderful patterns in black and white and colors. Great prices on Overstock.

This is only a sampling.

 

But it’s not quite right for my kitchen floors.

 

So, I started looking some more through my kitchen pics on pinterest.

I came across this beauty belonging to Mitchel Gold – Bob Williams.

And then I realized that what I really want is more of a hotel/bistro look. And it makes a lot of sense too. My building was originally conceived to be a long-term residence hotel!

Instead of the Capiz shell I’d maybe do something like this classic globe pendant from Rejuvenation.

 

But since I’m still on kitchen floors I went on the hunt for my life this hexagonal tiles with a black snowflake motif.

Somertile white hex with snowflake design in black

This is a ceramic version. I think that it’s less formal. Certainly less expensive.

There’s also the classic flower version.

I did also find lots of gorgeous marble hex tiles here and here.

And then I came across some original beauties.

Dollop Coffee Company in Chicago. This is an original floor still in use!

This American House

I could see this in my kitchen. Black in the center with maybe two shades of green for the rest of the flower.

Of course, I could always put in a wood kitchen floor.

haha!

Okay, I know that you guys have your ideas too! I’d love to hear what you think. Please be gentle. :] (Wires and plugs do not bother me in the slightest, btw.)

xo,