Kitchen Love

I have been itching to share my kitchen with you all for ages, but really wanted to wait until it was better organized.

My house was built in 1950 and my mom's parents lived in it until early 2004. They moved into a retirement community and I was lucky enough to move in after them. My mom was raised here and I have many, many fond childhood memories as well.

Since it is an older home, it needed some good all around TLC, which I have slowly but surely been providing over the years. The living room, kitchen, bathroom, garage and bedrooms have all been re-done for the most part over the last couple of years and today I am going to share my kitchen with you.

I love my new floors!

It has the original green tile and wood cupboards. I am a more modern girl, so it has taken some time for me to adjust to it and make my style mesh. I repainted the kitchen a lovely color and had new vinyl put in, which I just love. It is the perfect modern mix for me, with coloring that pulls everything together. I would eventually like to get
the tile and cupboards re-done... I know, I know! I can hear you gnashing your teeth at the very thought! Maybe if I change out the hardware I will be happy, but for now, it works just fine for me and I do have great memories of this kitchen.

I don't know if you can see the tiny tin cup sitting up on the third shelf in the first picture above the red pitcher, but that is probably one of my favorite things in this kitchen. When I was itty bitty, probably around 3 or 4, my grandma used to pour some chocolate chips in there for me to munch on. I loved that little tin cip, and it was always in the second drawer to the left of the sink. It is super old, I wouldn't be surprised if it came from my Grandma's parent's household.

All right, enough rambling from me! How would you like to see my latest project in the kitchen? I warn you, I am just in heaven over it. I was inspired by another blog, which I did not bookmark so I can't give her the proper credit! But if she happens to read this, please leave me a comment so I can link to your blog, because truly the shelves you put up in your kitchen gave me the inspiration for this!

Sunday my brother and I took a trip to Ikea, he was looking for new bedroom furniture and I was looking for the finishing touches to my office and my kitchen. I will share my office with you next week. ;o)

Heaven! I am in heaven! I love everything about these shelves. This entire wall was blank before yesterday.

As you can see, I found a lovely home for the gorgeous teal Ball Mason jars I found at a garage sale a few months ago. I love being able to display them like this!

The little tree next to them was $7.99 at TJ Maxx and the little silver pot it is sitting in was $.79 at Ikea. The tall skinny mason jar on the far left is also from Ikea, and it holds my whole wheat fettuccine perfectly. I believe this jar was $3.99.

Note: The rail is the exact same length
as the shelves. I tightened it too much so that
is why it looks short. I will eventually loosen
it and remount.

On the second shelf, the mason jar on the far left is also from Ikea. The middle is a cute fake grass plant I picked up as well, for $3.99 sitting in the $.79 pot. The jars sitting on either side of the grass plant are from the dollar tree! Such a good deal.

You might recognize the white dish on the far right as the one spray painted white for Christmas as a refurb. I love having such a great place to display it.

The two shelves are Grundtal 31.5", one Grundtal 31.5" rail, Grundtal S hooks and the Grundtal spice rack. The spice rack actually is supposed to be mounted to a rail that hangs from the rail above it, but when I put the spice rack together I was disappointed to discover that the spice rack rail was bent! I am not close enough to Ikea to exchange it, so I chose to mount the spice shelves directly to the wall and am very happy with how they turned out! Note to self, next time I go down I need more of the S hooks. I only bought a package of 5 and I really wish I had bought one more package.  I figured I could just purchase more from their web site if needed, but unfortunately they do not sell these online! *sniff* Eventually I will put all of my spices into the jars that are displayed on the first shelf. I have had these for several years and found them at Bed Bath and Beyond. I hope they still carry them!

Next to my stove is my little "island", which is wall mounted. I installed the shorter Grundtal rail and hung the spice rack mounts on it. I was able to bend them enough so they looked okay and I put some of my favorite magnets on it.

The 50's style "I used to care" one I got at the absolute cutest store when I was in West Hollywood last March. The "Chicks Rule" is from my late friend Missy, whom you have heard me talk about on many occasions.

I used two Grundtal S hooks to hold my most used whisks. The super cute cupcake potholder was a gift from my littlest little sister Katy, which is clipped onto the rail with a magnet.

The wine rack was $9.99 and I have been wanting to get it for awhile. I have eyeballed it on my last few trips and wasn't sure where I was going to display it so I always passed it by. I am so glad I didn't this time. I know my display is a bit sparse, but don't worry, I plan to fill it up next time I go shopping. ;o)

The three frosted canisters are currently empty, but I plan to fill them soon. Also from Ikea.

Didn't this all come together so wonderfully? I know I keep saying that, but seriously yesterday after all of this was installed I just sat at my kitchen table and stared it happily for at least an hour. I am just in love. This whole entire side of my kitchen was completely bare before I hung these shelves, because I just didn't know what to do with it. I will put together some cute Eat, Drink, Bake signs and will be hanging those soon. Don't worry, I will share these of course!

And last but not least are the shelves I hung over my portable dishwasher. My kitchen counters are so narrow I can not install a built in dishwasher. My cabinets are also not very tall or deep, so I can't fit cereal boxes inside.  This area is no where near as pretty but it is so functional!

I still need to organize it a bit more, but I just love what it is doing so far.  Everything on these shelves were on top of my fridge, except for the knives, which were just looking ugly on my little island.

Ikea actually sells a magnetic knife holder as part of the Grundtal series and I wish I would have picked it up when I was there.

Oh well, there is always next time!

So tell me, what do you think of my kitchen redo? Thank you for reading and I am so happy to share this with you.

All of my best,

Linking up to all of the usual suspects, as well as Common Ground