Accentute what you've got

Now that we have been bathing in the completed project afterglow for a while, H and I are starting to discuss the next batch of changes to our house.   One of which is a cosmetic face lift to our kitchen.  While we were lucky to have inherited a great space, we have a grand "one day" plan of blowing out a wall or two to make a huge open plan space, but as the kitchen is in pretty good condition, we are not about to pull the trigger on that expensive reno any time soon.  But, there are some things that we think are missing in this space to make it really work for us that we can do in the interim, such as ...

ME: 

• More and Improved storage including some open shelving to display said nice dishware
• Hello, I married a chef for better (amazing home cooked meals) and for worse (his love/need to have a dish and glassware for every occasion)... so we have large quantities of kitchen goods that desperately need corralling.
• To replace the "stupid" random lone upper cabinet currently suspended off center on one of the walls of our kitchen, taking up valuable storage real estate. 

HE: 

• A corner banquette for additional seating
• A fun accent wall in a mod pattern

So, like any modern day DIY and design enthusiast, I've been gathering inspiration pinning ideas for this future project (if you want to check out all my pins, I'm "craftywaffles")

For this space, I'm envisioning a cosy corner banquette with  storage underneath for party dishes and other infrequently used items, paired with a tulip style round table, and a pair of fun chairs taking advantage of our corner with a window, next to our back door, something like this

from here

 

I'm thinking that H's requested "groovy" accent wall will go on the left wall from floor to ceiling, but I've been having trouble finding wallpaper that work's with our kitchens colours (seafoam green counters, yellow walls, and off white cabinets all of which are staying for now).

 

This wallpaper isn't super retro, but the colour and geometric pattern speaks to me.

 

from here

 

I also saw this paint able option which means we can totally customize the colour to suite our room, but the pattern may be a bit too ..... expected/traditional  modern retro ?

 

from here





The thought of stencilling has also crossed my mind as again we can customize the colour and the pattern to suit our space, and this one caught my eye - maybe the perfect blend of retro and contemporary?



from here

Whatever we choose, I want to add a series of simple modern floating shelves (probably from the Swedes) over part of the accent wall to display a bunch of our pretty bowls glasses and accessories.

from here

So there you have it, a sneak peek at our early stages of the kitchen beautification project.