our life with miley: a before and after: breakfast area

When we first looked at our current home this was what the kitchen breakfast area looked like.

I am pretty sure they had more plants in one area of the home then I had ever seen in a whole house before. The space had potential but when I took this picture I was pretty certain that we were not going to buy the house. Well it ended up being a price we really could not walk away from and after a long short sale this room in all it's beauty is mine :)

Thankfully on the day we moved in the plants were gone. (Sorry for the bad lighting. I did not ever think I would blog about this picture!)

The first thing to change, thanks to a friend helping us move (thanks charlie!), was that light fixture. While I was very thankful for this house the light was just was not my style and had to go. I had seen a beautiful antique chandelier at a store in Norfolk months before we got the townhouse and had my mom check in on it every few weeks to make sure it was still available. I knew that if we did end up getting the house I would want that light for the kitchen. Well fast forward 8 months and we got the news that the townhouse was ours! I called my mom that same day and had her purchase the light. It turns out someone did want to buy the light fixture but the woman at the store held it for me. It pays off to be friends with antique dealers!

I am not sure if you can tell from the before pictures but the kitchen was bright neon yellow. We also have oak cabinets in the kitchen so there was a lot of yellow in this room. I was not sure when we would get around to updating the kitchen so I just painted the space Martha Stewart's Glass of Milk when we moved in. I also added shelves to display my Emma Bridgewater collection. I started collecting this pattern in high school and still love it today!

My husband and I decided to use this area more as a sitting room since the dining room was practically 2 feet away from the kitchen and we really eat at the kitchen island most nights. The chairs pictured above are actually the armchairs from my dining room set (it was my grandmothers). The dresser came from a friends attic and I used it all through college. It was a lighter wood that I stained a mahogany finish. It now has a nice distressed look to it from years of use :)

Shelves decorated for Christmas

After months of living with the space as seen above I decided to finally paint the kitchen cabinets and this is when the rest of the kitchen got a paint makeover as well. This is what the room looks like today.

We purchased some white chairs from ikea to replace the dining room chairs and moved the white end table that we were using as a coffee table to the living room. Once we redo the floors we will get a rug so Will can have a place to play while I make dinner. I am thinking of West Elm's Jute rug for this space but want to see what the floors look like first.

Here are some details from the room.