I don’t know what it is about the spring, but the inspiration bug has definitely bitten me. I don’t know if it’s warm weather or the fact that I have multiple friends buying homes this year (which means I’ve been looking through other beautiful homes online), but I am dying for the weather to be nice enough to be working outside and starting some new projects around the house. Last year, we made simple updates to the paint, outlets/switches, and decor (like buying a new carpet and setting up regular maintainence checks with the guys from carpet cleaning columbia sc) so I think we’re ready to keep the momentum rolling. As usual, I’ve been keeping track of inspiration via Pinterest, but I thought I would share some of my favorites.

The Kitchen: Kevin and I have been thinking about a kitchen refresh but wanted to wait until we’d been in our house for a while before making any changes. After about a year (!!!), we have found that we like the organization of the kitchen, all of the cabinet space, and the cut out wall, but the cabinets could use a fresh coat of paint and it would be fun to add a back splash as well. I really like subway tile, so I’m considering that for the kitchen. Cabinets can be a good option to reorganize your kitchen, kitchen remodeling from Gamma Cabinetry works on it. Our baseboards, doors and windowsills throughout the upstairs are a warm white, so, unless I paint all of those I probably won’t go with a bright white option. I like the look of the glass tiles in the photo above. As far as paint goes, we’re leaning towards dark lower cabinets and warm white uppers. Kevin wanted to go dark and I wanted stark white so this seemed like a perfect compromise. I think that will be a happy medium because while I love the blue/grey color, it has the potential to make the room feel smaller and the more I think of it, white on the lower cabinets just seem like they could get dirty quick.

The Entryway: By the front door, we have a small entryway and coat closet. These adjacent areas have two different patterns of linoleum joined by a metal transition strip, so I wanted to tile the whole area to make it seamless. We found the one pictured at Lowes and both Kevin and I LOVED it. It is warm enough that it looks great with our tan walls and the grey that’s already in the room. It also looks perfect next to the color of the hardwood. Each tile piece is about 12″ by 24″ so we wouldn’t need much to cover our 18 square foot space. I originally thought I wanted to do a hexagon tile at the front door, but I’m starting to think it would just be way too dark and overpowering for this area.

The Garden: I’ve been planting veggies for years – both at my parents house and at apartments during college – so I am thrilled to have my own yard to grow all of the things. We have a large backyard but a lot of it is in the shade during the summer when the trees have leaves, so I’m not going to start any garden plots this year. I’d like to start with some kind of raised flower bed. There are lots of options on Pinterest that I could move around the backyard to find sun or there are the little flower boxes like the ones in the picture above that I could set on the front porch. Additionally, I’m also looking forward to planting some flowers and having terracotta pots full of beautiful plants. I’ve heard the rule that each big pot needs a spiller (hanging outside the pot), filler (filling the pot) and thriller (something tall) to really make the pots pop. Here’s to lots of flower and veggie seeds in my (near) future.

So there you have it!

What projects are you planning this year?