Kitchen & Dining Area Before

As you can see in the before pictures, the previous owners had a deep-rooted but unwarranted love of molding.  If you look closely at the ceiling they had attached braided molding in a rectangle on the ceiling.  To add insult to injury....they then painted the center a mint green.  Gag.  When we pulled the molding down we found that they used a ton of brads and glue to adhere it so that it took the drywall with it.  

Before....note the molding on the ceiling

Paul had a brilliant idea the first few weeks after we moved in and suggested that we put a large window on the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen.  I was pretty nervous about this project but he did a fantastic job and it looks so much more open and lets a lot more light into the living room.  

wall without window

The other elements about the kitchen that I wanted to change were the cabinets (oak with outdated gold knobs), countertop (previous owners had tiled over old laminate counter), the walls (painted peach and no tile work) and the floor which we will get to one of these days.

Oak, gold knobs and tile

I knew I wanted a really cozy, classy kitchen because we spend a lot of time in the kitchen and at the table, especially when we have company.  I wanted kind of an updated French country feel and I knew one of the ways I wanted to achieve this was to brick the entire wall from counter to ceiling behind the cabinets.  Only problem...I wasn't crazy about the color of the bricks we were finding so my brother Luke gave me the idea to cut slate into 3" x 6" brick tile and use that to "brick" my wall.  I love it!!!!!  

I had to drape the entire kitchen so I could repair the ceiling.  This was probably
the hardest thing we did in the kitchen.