Before and after: the kitchen

It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally ready to share mediocre pictures of a room that I'm now very happy with ... thanks to the mood board I purchased from Emily A. Clark a while ago. A long while ago.

I know I say this every time I share a redesigned room with you guys, but it's the truth: From the time I buy the first element for a room redesign to the time I buy the last, I'd say typically 18 to 24 months lapse. If you have a couple of thousand dollars saved that you can spend on a room on Day One, that's great. But I never have that. I do things one step at a time, and that usually means that my room goes through what would be known in Hair Terms as "that awkward growing-out phase." Things don't coordinate for a while, major and minor furniture pieces are missing for sometimes months at a time, and the carpet LITERALLY doesn't match the drapes until the last second.

My advice to you is, if you wait until you have every penny you'll need, you may never do it. And you'll be sitting in your wood-paneled family room with your orange shag carpet and built-in laminate-top bar watching The Oscars telecast in 2032, looking around and thinking, "Wow. I really should have torn out that bar out in 2013."

At any rate, I finally pulled together everything for the kitchen except for the rug ... because Internet. If you only knew the volume of food and drink that gets spilled under our table every night, you would just die. No rug is going under that table for another few years. (But I DO love the one Em chose.) The mood board:

Before

After

You'll notice in the "After" picture that the table is turned the opposite way ... I change it every couple of years or so. The breakfast nook is pretty small, especially for a table that seats six to eight people. It doesn't fit very well in the space no matter WHICH way I place it, and eventually I hope to replace it with a large round table.

I LOVE the large pendant drum light that Emily picked out for the room. It's probably my favorite new element in the room.

It casts a beautiful glow that doesn't give me a migraine, which was a major problem with our old light fixture. This is a softer light, and the bottom of the shade is actually covered, as well, so you don't get the glare of the bulbs, even when you're sitting directly underneath it.

(You can read about the recovering of the chairs by clicking here.)

Before

After

Before

After

All of the window treatments were done by Windows by Melissa, who has done basically all of the window treatments in my house (four rooms so far). I highly recommend her!

Before

After

And just for good measure, a few other views from around the room. I'm so happy with the way it came out, and happy to be moving on to the den. Yes, it never ends with me. The den is on its way, too.