Duckhead Kitchen Dreams

Last summer as we were leaving Duck Head before three weeks of renters staying there I discovered a pool of water under the kitchen sink.  I texted our cleaner and called our handyman and we decided a bowl and a weekly check by the cleaner and handyman would be enough to get us through.  The handyman came after we left while the cleaner was there and happened to notice a chip in the sink on the side where we wash dishes that he felt went all the way through the sink basin.  With a sink full of water multiple times a day it was leaking through.  He patched it quickly and then switched the dish drying rack to that side with the hopes that our renters would wash dishes in the other basin and reduce the amount of water coming through.   We didn't have an issue with renters or our leaking sink but it's been our radar all year that we are perhaps needing a new one.  Plus the iron stains from the water don't look great in our white sink, the caulking he used to fix the hole isn't looking so fresh and it's time to put a little love into our kitchen, or at least our kitchen sink.

The kitchen really is fine as it is.  We would love a few small changes but trash and a dishwasher are the only things that feel like necessities.  

The kitchen was replaced by the previous owners.  White cabinets with silver knobs, black laminate with wood edged counters, black appliances and rustic wood walls.   Our kitchen has been mostly red and yellow and turquoise since we bought the cottage although I have slowly moved away from the red and more towards the turquoise accents.  We've also been saying we need a better trash situation.  We love our pull out drawer at home with trash and recycling in the same cabinet.  If we were going to replace the sink do we also add a dishwasher?   I was recently saying I like our wood walls and that a lot of our renters and friends say how much they love them because they remind them of their grandparents beach house, a lake house they stayed in as a kid, etc.  As I got on pinterest to look at farm house sinks I realized I was gravitating towards another idea altogether.  I really don't want to do an entire kitchen reno anytime soon just to replace our kitchen sink but my pinterest preferences made me realize that I might be able to make some changes that require time and energy and maybe some paint and not necessarily everything or hardly anything new.

Here is what I'm digging.  It's definitely cottagey.  Which is fitting.  It draws inspiration from pinterest & if you follow me on pinterest at Kari MacLeod you've been watching me pinning kitchen pictures to my "Lake House Living" folder as of late!  From blogs I read where bloggers are making do with what they have, adding a little paint to cabinets/trim/walls, a new faucet, and living with what they have like the folks over at Jones Design Company https://jonesdesigncompany.com/our-house/kitchen-mini-makeover-reveal/

to designing a brand new kitchen for their new house like they are at Lily Pad Cottage http://www.thelilypadcottage.com/2017/01/kitchen-plans.html (this design below had me think that maybe just maybe the sink should face the lake in a peninsula someday).  Dream big, right!

Young House Love, a blog I've been following for years, recently bought a run down beach house fixer upper.   They are mood boarding and dreaming of fun bright beachy styles and colors and turquoise seems to come up a few times like in the screen grab below.   mmmm!  Yummy!  http://www.younghouselove.com/2017/01/beach-house-style-inspiration/

And shows I watch like Fixer Upper where cottage style and painted white shiplap is becoming a new buzzword in the design industry.  https://magnoliamarket.com/our-show/episode-04-big-country-house/

This is my favorite!  Gray cabinets with black knobs.  Hmm.  This is the first picture of a kitchen that got me thinking outside of the box of just replacing our sink.  Take down uppers on one side.  Paint walls.  Paint cabinets and knobs.  New sink.  Dishwasher under shelves where we would put every day white dishes and clear glassware.  

Farmhouse sink, bigger window over sink, white walls but one wall left wooden.  

Similar to the first, wooden slats on white walls (would we just white wash to see knots through paint?)  Mixed woods on counter, ceiling, shelves.  

Gray cabinets, silver, white counters.  Not ready to change counters yet unless we need to to add dishwasher trash in an area that doesn't already have a counter.

Rod is into brass.  Brass sink faucet and cabinet hardware, brass lights on wall above shelves.  White shelves.

Painted cabinets with brass hardware?

Too bold a color?  Just for the sink "nook"?

New lights are definitely on the "to do now" list. 

Can't you picture it?   Either painting the walls white or white washing them so you can see the knots in the wood behind like the ceiling, get rid of the uppers on the righthand side and put in barn wood shelves with all our day to day white dishes and clear or turquoise glassware.  Add a dishwasher and trash to the bar area.  Try to retrofit the kitchen cabinet to fit a farmer's sink and paint the hardware either brass or black or replace it.  New lights.   Do all that first and then decide whether to keep cabinets white as they already are or paint them gray.   Eventually when we are ready to sink a little more money into the kitchen decide what color appliances we would like (no finger print stainless for me!), replace the counters with something we like more (soapstone, marble, granite) and decide at this point if we have room for a peninsula with a sink facing the lake with counter stools on the other side so folks can hang in the kitchen while we cook and clean,  add a hood over the stove so we can actually vent some of the heat from this small space and make the space overall more functional and cottagey.   A girl can dream, right?  

And of course while searching for kitchens a few more cottage pictures showed up with painted walls.  One of our bedrooms is white and is showing some scuff marks from bags etc.  This would be pretty.  And the bathroom?  Hmmm.  And this all started with me lying in bed looking at the 4 different tones of wood color in the master bedroom and trying to come up with a solution. And a kitchen sink.  I see some painters elbow in my future!  

And while I was searching kitchen ideas I found another sign.   It's true!
Changes or no changes Duck Head is our happy place!