Kitchen Remodel: Herringbone Subway Tile and Stainless Steel Appliances

Finally, my favorite part of our kitchen remodel: the subway tile backsplash in a herringbone pattern! Since we decided to lay a more complicated pattern, we measured the dimensions of the first strip of wall and laid out the tile in the pattern on the countertop and made cuts where needed. Here is my father-in-law getting the pattern laid out, and then beginning to adhere the tile to the wall with mortar:

After two full days of cutting tile and adhering it to the wall, the following weekend we filled it in with a sand-based grout. 

Here's the final pattern:

I'm absolutely in love with how it turned out! It's classic but yet so fun and interesting. I could stare at it for hours!

You'll also notice the classy stainless steel appliances my in-laws gifted us with for our birthdays! Phil is absolutely over-the-moon about our new induction cooktop stove. And I'm totally digging the second oven down below. At first I thought it was just a typical drawer. Surprise to me! We also purchased the integrated panel dishwasher from Ikea. You can see it to the right of the sink. I love that it just looks like another cupboard!

The corner tile around the window ended up being a last minute addition, but I'm so glad we went with it! It has such an elegant curve to it and perfectly finishes off the edge. Gorgeous!

I have one more reveal to share you of our adorable little breakfast nook, and our latest DIY makeover on those stools you see above! Coming soon! A huge thanks to my amazing in-laws, Kent and Barb, for all your help on the tile! We couldn't have done it without you! 

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Featured on Wedding Cheesecake

All this week, mine and Philip's engagement and wedding photos were featured on the midwestern wedding blog Wedding Cheesecake. Thank you Amanda for all your sweet words! It's so fun for us to look at those photos again and be reminded of what an amazing day it was! Check out Amanda's posts here:

Engagement Part 1
Engagement Part 2
Engagement Part 3
Wedding Part 1
Wedding Part 2

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Kitchen Remodel: Countertops

After our cabinets were installed, we ended up having to wait a MONTH before our countertops could be installed. Let's just say we ate lots of gyros from Saba's. When we purchased our cabinets at Ikea, they were running a promotion for 40% off countertops (with cabinet purchase). Score! We chose Silestone Quartz in Blanco Maple - white with gray glass flecks - with a contemporary "eased and polished" edge. We picked this product because Silestone has antimicrobial protection, which prevents bacteria from building up as it does in other porous stone materials. And quartz is resistant to acids and is extremely hard. In fact, it's the toughest interior surface available, resisting scratches, staining and scorching. Which I'm sure will be helpful when we have kiddos in the future! Here they are templeting our countertops...

Putting in the wood backer...

The first slab goes in...

And the final product!

Please excuse all the stuff on the counters and the lack of styling. This is real life at the Ellerbroek house! We bought our farmhouse sink at Ikea for only $199! Most similar farmhouse sinks start around $800-$1,000 and go up from there. So we were thrilled to find this deal! Apparently Ikea discontinued this sink about a week after we bought ours. Good timing!

There's still more to come! Our gorgeous tile backsplash (my favorite project in our house to date!), new appliances, and our fun breakfast nook!

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Kitchen Remodel: Cabinets

If you remember my post about our kitchen inspiration photos, you'll remember that I was dreaming of white uppers and black/brown lowers for an open, spacious feeling. So, we ordered just that from Ikea in the Ramsjo style doors. But when our cabinets were delivered and we opened one of the nearly 100 boxes, we found the white doors to be more white wash than bright white. The problem is that the wood showing through the white wash is a pinkish colored birch. Baby pink kitchen? No thanks! So, we made the decision to switch to black/brown uppers to match the lower cabinets. Not exactly what I had in mind. But our only other option if we wanted bright white was to go with a different door style, and the OCD designer in me couldn't handle the inconsistency of that. Luckily, we have very few upper cabinets, and LOTS of light in our kitchen, so it wouldn't totally ruin the open, airy feeling I was going for.

We hired a local company called Great Spaces to assemble and install our cabinets for us. We were planning to do it ourselves with the help of Phil's parents (aka The Slaves :), but they decided it was worth the money to have professionals take care of this house project, and generously gave us $$ towards the bill.

So, without further adieu...

I'm loving our glass front upper cabinets, the sweet little bookshelf to the left of the sink, the lazy susans in the corners (where we didn't even have a cabinet before!), and the deep drawers for our pots and pans! And the 42" uppers (minus the soffit) make the room feel so much more big and open!

Still to come: the countertops, tile backsplash, appliances, and kitchen nook!

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Kitchen Remodel: Before and Soffit Removal

We're finally almost finished with our kitchen remodel, and I finally got a card reader to download photos from my camera, so here we go! A few before shots:

As you can see, our kitchen felt small and out-dated. And we didn't care for the style of it, nor did it match the rest of our house. So, to get started we had the cabinets, countertops and appliances removed:

Next, since it served no functional purpose, we decided to have the soffit removed to create a more open feel, and give us another 10 inches of vertical space in the upper cabinets.

After the soffit came out, all of the wiring had to be moved up above the beams, and the drywall repaired:

We were then left with one night to quickly get the room painted before the cabinets were to be installed the next morning! (A huge thanks to my bestie Linda for helping me tackle this job while Phil was in class. Press on soldier! :) You can see my test swatches in the photo above. We ended up going with the middle swatch, Behr Ultra Premium Plus Flat/Matte in Roman Plaster.

Sorry for the dark photo. It was early in the morning and I only had a quick moment to snap a picture before the installers got started. Up next, the cabinets and countertops!

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