Wide Open Spaces

Just a quick Wednesday post to share that we finally ripped out the header cabinet in the kitchen.

It's amazing how much more open and airy the dining room and kitchen feel now. (Please excuse the mess. We are still on coat two of texturing the walls so the dining room is chaos right now.)

In case you forgot, here's what it looked like before.

With the header cabinet gone, it's also amazing how much more we notice the lovely t-bar ceiling.

I never liked it before and definitely wanted to do away with it, but the header cabinet hid it fairly well.
Now it's on the top of the list of things to get rid of. Of course, it will have to wait for the walls to be finished, but we are already dreaming of a combination of can and small pendant lights.

Speaking of pendant lights, I ordered a the Eden Pendant Lamp from CB2. We had to take the fan down to texture the walls and ceilings, and once it was gone I couldn't bear the thought of putting it back up.
I forgot to snap a picture of it in my haste to take it down, but it's not much better than this one in the master bedroom. (Please excuse the bad photos. The fog was not cooperating with my need to snap some pics this morning.)

Thanks to a gift certificate left over from our wedding, it was free for us, although the $49.00 price tag is not too shabby for a big pendant light!

I am hoping the simple shape won't block the newly expanded view and will allow other furniture, like the hutch, to steal the show. Plus the room could use a serious dose of curves with all those squares going on.

I'll be sharing how we brought the hutch back from the brink tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.