Black and white kitchen makeover, and a remodeled bungalow

Are you all as excited that it's Friday as I am? I have the day off today from my day job (WOHOO!) so it's the start of a long weekend for me, which is very welcomed because my fiancé and I need to get working on the renovation of my dressing room (which was suuposed to start last weekend) so he can fit all his clothes when he moves in to my place in a couple weeks. It's going to be a fairly simple job - rip out the existing ancient shell of a closet, re-drywall where the closet was, replace the UGLY laminate floor with the new maple floating floor we purchased (that is not ready for us to pick up yet), paint, hang bars on one end of the room and floor to ceiling shelving on the other, and then DECORATE! Did I say that was simple? Maybe not. Time consuming for sure so I had better get cracking. To end off the work week and speaking of renovations, I thought I'd feature a couple I found on Country Home. The first is a makeover that modernized the kitchen in a Connecticut Victorian built in 1873 (and adjacent 'keeping' room and entryway). It's all black and white - gotta love that! And after the jump is the gorgeous renovation of a 1923 Craftsman bungalow in Des Moines, Iowa.

  

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Kim's temporary bathroom redo

I mentionned here on DTI a while ago that I was working on another home project but I didn't give away too many details. I FINALLY finished and now it's time to share.

I had grown VERY tired of the ugliness of my main bathroom. One day I hope to gut the space and completely redo every piece of it but in the meantime the ugliness was getting on my last nerve. And I needed a project because I just wasn't busy enough. (HA). So here are a couple photos of the bathroom before I tackled it - and this is how it had been since I bought the home more than two years ago.

  

Trust me, it was even worse in person. The linoleum floor was scratched to sh*t, and so dirty and stained it was impossible to clean. The main light fixture, medicine cabinet, towel bar, light switch plate, outlet plate, toilet paper holder were ALL made of nasty wood. SO GROSS. I'm pretty sure the cabinet over the toilet was hung upside down. The faucet was probably the cheapest one you could buy and was missing a piece on the front to cover the screw. The walls were white and BORING. There's a small window to the left of the toilet that had bright green plastic blinds hanging. There's a second light fixture on the wall opposite the sink that had a nasty 80s vibe. The whole space was just awful. Until I can gut the room, I decided to do a cheap makeover. Some leftover paint, new inexpensive faucet and lighting, addition of a chair rail, cheap lino peel and stick tiles, some items brought in from other spaces around my house to decorate and VOILA, a temporary fix to keep me from losing my mind.

Many more photos to follow..... 

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More black and white (and grey and lavender)

The other day a reader named Bo sent us this link to a black and white home on a Swedish real estate site. I thought it was a cool pad, but then while perusing the site I came across this home that really got me going. I LOVE the location, the open layout, the fresh colour scheme, the whitewashed wide plank hardwood, the grey trim, the black Smeg, the viewwwwww.......(thx Bo!)

Nacho Polo

Black and white, yin and yang, stark simplicity and stylish furnishings, Florida interior designer meets Madrid home. Nacho Polo takes a limited colour palette and creates high drama. White floors don't have to mean Boho or Scandinavian. Here they are the base of a cool sophisticated space. (Last three images are magazine tear sheets from Nacho Polo's press section. Just a glimpse of a glamorous kitchen and I just had to include the b&w striped powder room. Room lust!)

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Deepest darkest beauty

Swedish interior design is white. Right? What's really hot is when Swedish designers turn to the dark side. This stunning minimalist space may just tempt you to follow their lead. Innovative, contemporary and urban. Seriously beautiful work by Stockholm based Erik Andersson Architects. Found here in their dream home section.