Cork Cottage Kitchen

The kitchen in the cottage, luckily, did not need a major renovation- just a little charm. But what started out as, "Honey, can we just change the drawer pulls?" turned into... changing the faucet, the countertop and the floors. You know how it goes, no need to bore you with the messy negotiation details. So straight to the pics.

First, the before: green laminate countertop and backsplash, silver hardware on the cabinets and silver faucet.

The Update:

New countertop is cherry butcher block- a little high-maintance, but... soooo worth it. For the backsplash, we installed white bead-board. It is classic cottage, I couldn't resist.

I needed extra storage space for the cookbook collection; this cabinet I was lucky enough to grab when my grandmother moved.

Finally, my love- my new cork floor. When we were researching all of our options for flooring, cork kept coming up as one of the new "eco-friendly" options. So my interest was a little peeked. But once I saw the graining in one of the samples, I feel in love. I didn't even realize at the time that one of the best things about it is how it feels. If you stand in kitchen for any length of time cooking or baking, your feet will adore this floor just as much I as mine do. Compared to the old ceramic floor, you can feel such a difference. My happy, little feet thank me every day. And for anyone wondering, it is also very easy to clean. They put this stuff on the walls in the new HGTV Dream House!

Close-ups of my two cork crushes...

..hehe,  the Wino in me couldn't resist!

Here are my Linky Parties for the week!

   

Lofty Dreams

The loft is probably the last place at the cabin I will be able to get my little decorating hands on. Afterall, we still need kitchen cabinets, living room furniture and the list goes on and on. However, it is the space I am most excited about. This is where our guests stay so I want to make it as comfortable and inviting as possible. So first the progress and then the dreaming...

In the buliding stages...at least now it has a roof!

Still without the railings and the ladder, but at least we won't get wet!

Now...on to the dreaming...sigh...

 In this first inspirational photo the colors are all wrong, (there will be no white- washed walls, Hubs would freak!) but I like the placement of the two beds by the window and the slope of the roof is about the same. Plus, I already found a trunk! I found it on one of my antiquing adventures two summers ago. I wish I had taken a picture to share, but it is on my list of photographs to take the next time we go.

Coastal Living

This is the bed I am swooning over. Distressed red metal - how perfect would that be?

Ahhhh...someday.

Barn Beds

Although the cabin itself is nestled in the middle of the forest...in the middle of the mountain, on the way there we drive past miles and miles of pristine pastures and farmland. We love looking for the cows, horses and sheep by the side of the road. Even the occasional chicken crossing the road.  Yes, seriously; they really do.
We say hi to our farm friends as we drive up the mountain and we have to make sure we say goodbye as we drive back down. The farms and animals are so much a part of our experience going to the cabin I knew I needed to incorporate that into the design of the kids' room.
I came up with the idea of barn beds and found a few pictures online for inspiration (not an easy task; apparently searching barn and bed  together will find you a whole lot of Pottery Barn bed pictures!)  I gave the photos to Hubs and let him run with it. Here's the result:

They did turn out pretty darn cute! He even incorporated little hinged window doors that actually open and close- they love playing with those, especially in the middle of the night when they are too excited about being at the cabin to sleep.

I dressed the window with ruffly red gingham tie-back curtains and a tab top denim valance that actually has overall-type clasps on it. Here is a close-up since you can't see it real well in the photograph.

I found it at Walmart for only $7.44! One of my best cabin bargains to date.
I also made canvases for the walls out of an old farm picture book from my childhood- but I didn't take any photographs of them yet (oops!)...as soon as I do, I will share those too.

And even though Hubs did all of the work, I want to show it off so I am linking up here: