Butler's Pantry Turned Bar

Our new house had a small pantry in the kitchen and a butler's pantry off the kitchen.  Since our last house had no pantry, we felt that one pantry would be plenty for us and we decided to do something more fun with the butler's pantry.  We made it our bar.  We have voted this little room "most improved" in our house.  Check out the before and after!

One of the first things we did after closing on the house was to pull these awful ivy curtains down!  Then my husband removed the shelves and I painted the room with Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter (my favorite greige).  It already felt so much lighter and younger.  Then we brought in the furniture.  The bar is from Crate and Barrel.  My husband had it before we met (but it's still available at Crate and Barrel).  I love this bar.  You can fit so much in it and it's so organized.

We bought the brass shelf brackets from House of Antique Hardware for around $40 shipped and we bought the glass shelf at a local glass shop.  We were inspired by this brass and glass shelf from Pottery Barn but we didn't love the $200 per shelf price tag.

Inspiration Shelf from Pottery Barn

Our Shelf

I made a quick window valence based on this tutorial from Down Home Inspiration.  It's a great tutorial and it really only took about 10 minutes to make.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our little bar room!

Kitchen Remodel

As promised, I'm back with some more before and after pics from our recent remodeling.  Today, we'll visit our kitchen.  This was definitely the room that needed the most work when we bought our house.  It used to be the eye sore and now it's my favorite room in the house! This is our kitchen now.

We replaced the laminate countertops with Arabesco granite.  I love the gray tones of marble but I knew marble just wouldn't be practical for a family with two children under four and two clumsy adults who love red wine.  So, we went with this Arabesco granite and I LOVE it!  The gray tones are perfect.  We also replaced our backsplash with a classic white subway tile and used gray grout for some extra dimension.  We replaced the appliances with new stainless appliances and we switched out the old fluorescent light fixture for a classic schoolhouse light.  Finally, we replaced the old super-textured, very beige tile floors for new slate style ceramic tile floors.  Now, for the before and after pics!