We just replaced our (broken, 15 yo) side-by-side fridge with an LG French door. We have one in our 2nd home and I love it. H insisted on the old s-b-s and I’ve hated it the entire time. He finally came around. So much better for storing wide things. We have upright freezers in both homes for overflow.
I’ve lived through harvest gold, avocado green, brass fixtures, white kitchens, white and black appliances, and hand-painted backsplash tiles. I don’t want any of them again. The white kitchen we replaced 13 years ago was a pain to keep clean.
Shiny brass or gold just looks ick to me. Especially when there are other metals used in the same room. Give me brushed nickel, TYVM. Open shelving in the kitchen, especially right next to the stove, nope. Same for sliding barn doors (love my pocket doors, though) and shiplap.
A lot of the shows are showing banquettes/booths as kitchen dining, with round tables - they seem so unusable and uncomfortable. Busy, busy large tile backsplashes or in the bathroom - no. And I’m over subway tile, even if it is classic.
Our house was built in the 30s. We’ve only changed what’s broken. The wall oven still works and is stainless steel from that generation. Though I despise stainless steel - still no need to change it out when it works. The wall trim is all chestnut wood. The cabinets might be too.
When we moved in I insisted a dishwasher get added. The fridge is also newer, but goes back to when we could choose almond as a color. It’s still my favorite color, but impossible to find now. The fridge is a side by side with an ice maker - no problem at all putting in pizza boxes or similar.
House Hunters people would gag if they came in here. We’ve spent our money traveling instead. No regrets. But it’s likely the floors will be replaced relatively soon - as soon as we’re willing to move everything to have access to them and let people in our house. The carpet and linoleum are literally falling apart in places at this point. We’ve also drawn up plans to install a second bathroom so we have one downstairs. It might come with an office and both will be topped by replacing/extending an existing deck on the second floor.
I guess that’s what happens when it’s not easy to travel. Previously we’ve thought about doing these things only to have a place in the world lure us away instead.
Yeah, but based on your descriptions, your house seems to have classic and timeless beauty with a little bit of modern sensibility. Not a slave to fads, but with an ear to the present.
I would LOVE to see your house, lol. Sounds like you’ve got the whole thing down pat.
I’m reading this sitting in my 20 year old, semi-open floor plan, kitchen.
Parts I still love and would do again…a tea leaf colored quartz counter and the cherry cabinets. Both have held up amazingly well. Glad we went with stock cabinets that have a hard factory finish instead of customer built and finished in place (seen too many where the finish just looks bad in areas of higher use). Still love my backsplash - pretty neutral yellow but has a frame made out of a complementary border tile underneath the vent hood. Internal to the frame are the same yellowish tiles but in a different geometric orientation.
We replaced an older side by side SS fridge with a ‘black stainless steel’ French door model. Love the finish - but watch out for French door fridges, lots of problems.
Still LOVE our 4" plank tan oak floors. Modernized the paint a few years ago. The main area has a yellowish undertone. I wish I’'d gone with grayish but I was over ruled. HA.
Don’t really don’t like brass but still love my oiled bronze fixtures.
We did a major updating a few years back. New area rugs, new paint scheme and additional trim work.
I think some things never really go out of style (for long). Real wood cabinets and real wood floors in colors of the actual wood. Those are easy to decorate around with whatever the update of the day might be.
Having grown up on an actual farm with an actual barn, I don’t get the appeal. I also wouldn’t want my walls covered with something that dust and dirt could easily cling to.
I’m probably in the minority on this, but I am no lover of subway tiles.
I have had a white kitchen for the last 25 years and remodeling. With white again. With smooth, modern surfaces, it’s a breeze to keep clean. But it is, by design, small and just for cooking (efficiently). Living can happen in other parts of the house and the things associated with living can stay out of the kitchen!
There are a million things I love and my challenge is staying in the feel of the house.
I love subway tiles :). They are timeless to me. We have marble subway tiles in one of the original bathrooms of our 100+ year old house. I think it still looks great.
So many updates subway tiles on the market now too.
I dislike the new houses with the high first floor. Deep foundations. There are five to six steps to enter the house from the front or the garage. I guess they do it so they can have a deep basement. I’m not sure elderly friends would be able to visit.
I woulndn’t like to carry groceries up stairs either.
Is it still considered subway tile if it’s not boxy? Mine are a light grey, vertically elongated hexagon pattern. I really like it next to the dark espresso cabinets. My counters are not-quite white quartz w/ small veins of grey-taupe. I know it doesn’t sound like it would all match, but it does!!
A hexagon is not a subway tile. Subway tiles are rectangular as opposed to square. Usually laid up so the grout lines end at each tile (like brickwork), but there was a bit of a fad for a while there to stack them. All the original kitchens in my neighborhood (late 1920s early 1930s) had subway tiles, so they feel timeless not faddish to me. Mostly they just feel neutral. I have them in my bathrooms with a fancier border (different borders in different bathrooms). In my kitchen I put a piece of wood molding on top of them that acts as a small shelf running around the room that holds small art objects.
There’s nothing in my house that is of any style. My great grandmother’s mahogany dining room table, the desk made by my grandfather, a chest from Zanzibar, a coffee table from Indonesia, art from Africa and Japan along with a lot of my own watercolors, you get the idea!
I love grey paint and traditional hexagonal small bathroom floor tiles in grey and white, but I hate the tiled floors that look like grey wood planks and anything driftwood grey unless it’s actually a beach house.
Barn doors seem very over-used these days in houses that they don’t really belong in. I can see how they would be reasonable in some situations where you can’t fit regular doors and I’d like them in a country house or summer house, I guess, (if I had a summer house!) as long as they fit the style.
I just saw an old house from the 30s that would traditionally have white wood trim around the windows and mullions, where they had recently painted all the window trim black, and I hate it…maybe just because it is different? But I like narrow black or dark window trim if it is a very modern house.
I love white subway tile and plain white marble counter tops but I was not able to get my way on either one of those 15 years ago when remodeling our kitchen. We have a brownish speckled granite that I think is OK, but it definitely seems dated now and I don’t like it as much as I did when we got it.
We have old white subway tile in our shower which I like but the whole bathroom needs re-doing and I bet I will end up getting something “more interesting” even though I like the tile we have. It will be part of the compromise to avoid getting something I dislike more in another part of the bathroom! I wish we could leave that tile alone but it will get destroyed so that we can fix the plumbing issues.
I would never choose vessel sinks even for a powder room. Some of them are nice looking I guess but they don’t seem practical.
My sister recently did her kitchen and hers looks a lot like this. I didn’t think I would like the brass accents but I think that this picture gives you an idea that you can put in a few brass accessories and it can look really nice.
Honestly I think if you do any trend “right”, it can look really nice.
Still not going to paint all my window trim black. ?
We have a copper vessel sink in our powder room. It’s beautiful. Took me a while to get the balance of cleaning and not scrubbing off the patina. Bonus that the outside of the vessel rarely needs cleaning.
I like that overall look, @deb22, and it’s nice example of mixed metals and staggered subway tile. The brass is soft and brushed rather than hard and shiny and doesn’t overwhelm.
Though I despise stainless steel - still no need to change it out when it works. The wall trim is all chestnut wood. The cabinets might be too.