Monthly Pinterest: Our new kitchen/living space

We had moved into a truly spectacular home. It's in excellent condition and has so many interesting architectural elements and Victorian charm. We knew when we bought it that there were a few cosmetic changes we would want to make, but we’re handy folks and ready for the challenge.

This winter we began our first big remodel project—tackling our kitchen and adjoining living room. Here are some before photos for your reference:

As you can see, the space is large, has some really unique brickwork, tall ceilings, and wonderful natural light, thanks to the plentiful windows. But the busy wallpaper, amount of furniture, and old rug and carpet were doing the space an injustice. And frankly, the wallpaper needed to go ASAP—it was giving us headaches!

So we began by clearing the rooms, and started the PAINFUL process of removing the wallpaper. My goodness. The living room was an addition to the house, so it is drywall, but the kitchen (and rest of the house) has plaster walls. The wallpaper put up a heck of a fight, but we were able to get it down with a LOT of elbow grease and a mixture of water and fabric softener (bonus: made the rooms smell fresh and clean!).

Next, we decided we were going to paint the kitchen a solid, warm mustard yellow (Pirate's Treasure from Valspar), and then re-wallpaper the living room with this modern, abstract woods print from Home Depot. In order to get a great finish in both rooms, we re-mudded and sanded the walls (again, a TON of elbow grease required.) But the paint job came out great, and we were able to keep the existing trim and brick paint colors:

The wallpaper is next on our list. After that's done, we will move on to repurposing our existing furniture and finding the right accessories (and eventually, replacing the carpet with wood flooring).

We created this Pinterest board, and the look we're going for is rustic meets kitchy. We want the kitchen espeically to have a vintage feel with perhaps some old tin food cans and signs, while the woods wallpaper in the living room with hopefully give an airy but cozy space for curling up with a book or cup of coffee. Stay tuned! We'll post "after" photos once the space is complete (or at least, complete for now!). Enjoy our inspiration:

Categories: Garrett County MD design, historic Victorian home, kitchen design ideas, living room design ideas, monthly Pinterest CurlyRed