J. ANNE

Hi!!!!!!

Let’s dust this blog thing off a little bit!! Over the last year and a half I got a divorce, sold my old home, purchased a new home, and gutted it to begin the process of remodeling it as quickly as possible because it was LEGIT outdated. If you missed the process of this whole renovation you should definitely head to my story highlights on Instagram because it was a really fun process!!

Kitchens are always my favorite room to redesign in a home, so I had a blast figuring out what I wanted to do in this new kitchen of mine!! The biggest show stopping piece, and the piece that I get asked about the most is hands down my kitchen island. So… in order to get you to a place of understanding where my brain was in the pre-stages of the design… here is my design collage from elements that I found around the interwebs…

As you can see I wanted the island to be an old work table of some sort in order to bring in some texture and warmth to what would be a very new and shiny space. Modern design is not something that I gravitate towards, so I find that when I mix in elements of a previous time, era, or story then I’m able to neutralize the feeling of the space being too cold and new for my liking.

I’m sad about the fact that I never took a full “before” photo of the piece that I chose for the kitchen island… but I do have this iPhone photo from my Instagram story archives to show you a little bit about what the piece looked like before the transformation started.

…and here is a photo of the kitchen BEFORE any renovations started at all!!!

So, I had a team of amazing guys working on these projects for me. Jose is my main babe, and his team absolutely killed this project. They sand blasted the green paint off, and tore out some of the shelving in the back of the piece so that I could store larger items like slow cookers and mixing bowls. I also had them add a custom quartz counter top so that everything tied into the kitchen design cohesively.

Here’s the final product!!

Here are a few of the most recently asked questions about this design process:

Q: How do you keep the aesthetic of the house consistent throughout so it looks cohesive or do you not approach your remodel that way?

A: I don’t think that I have to actively focus on this. My style has definitely evolved over time, and my likes and dislikes change here and there with trends, but for the most part, I seem to always gravitate towards the same style… which I would define as an updated farmhouse with touches of contemporary patterns. So, as I move from room to room, my style stays the same and I’m instantly attracted to furniture pieces and design elements that stay within the same style house.

The photographer in me loooooves everything to do with bright natural light, and that light is the very first thing that I look at when buying, renovating, and styling a home.

Q: Do you use any tools or mood boards besides Pinterest to find your inspiration?

A: I definitely use Pinterest for some things, but it is not where I find myself to be the most inspired. My Instagram feed is a big source of inspiration for me. I follow people who create work that inspires me. I’m a huge sucker for cool coffee table books filled with art, and I look through them often… even for wedding photography inspiration.

I don’t want to sound cheesy, but I get inspired by a lot of things around me in daily life… especially when I’m trying to figure out something that will work for odd spaces in a home. After I have an idea of things in my head I will create a collage of screen shots and photos so that I can see everything together in one place… similar to how the collage at the top of this blog shows you… but let’s be real… there were a lot of elements being added into my kitchen, so I think that the collage above was one of three for the kitchen space alone.

Q: Once you find your ideas or solidly what you want for your own house/project, what tools do you use to focus on just your project?

A: The answer to this is simple. I don’t. Focus is something that I struggle with. Even when one project is going I’m constantly thinking of the next. I genuinely think that I could tinker with this house for the next ten years and not be done with it. There are easily 10 more massive projects that I want to do, and they’re all swimming around in my head taunting me.

Q: Who did you use for the contract work, and what products did you use?

A: Having a good team of people was so important!!! I couldn’t have done any of this without Jose and his team of guys who could literally complete any project I asked for. His contact information is screen shotted and shared many times in my Instagram stories.

The kitchen island was purchased from an amazing antique store in downtown Las Vegas called Modern Mantiques. 

The quartz is from Dal Tile. The stools are from Restoration Hardware. The hardware on my cabinets, my sink, and my faucet is from Ferguson’s while my cabinets are from ProSource. The wallpaper is from Urban Walls, and the rug is from Target.

Q: How much did this renovation cost you?

A: Yeah… I get asked that a lot. The kitchen island itself cost about $1900 from Modern Mantiques. The quartz slab from Dale Tile cost around $1500. The labor to do the work to make it how I wanted cost about $500, and the labor to fabricate and install the quartz was around $1500. So, in total this island cost about $5400. BUT… I definitely think that it could be done way cheaper if I lived somewhere that had old work tables laying around in barns and basements… or if I had thrifted a bit more or hunted estate/garage sales… PLUS… if I was handy at all then I could have done the work myself. The only thing that I feel like needs to really be professionally handled on this project is the fabrication of the quartz countertop.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! I’ll try to answer in the comments, but it’s easier to reach me through DMs on Instagram!!!