Drumroll please….
Monday I unveiled the design for the moody and dark entertainment room. Today, I present you it’s opposite, the white and bright kitchenette, and sometime bar, or as we call it “the light room.”
To see the vision for the bar at-a-glance click here.
We plan for this space to serve as a kitchenette during the day for quick snacks and drinks, and as a bar for special occasions. I can just picture E’s little feet dangling off a bar stool. This daydream melts my mommy heart already.
To balance the darkness of the entertainment room, which we are painting floor-to-ceiling in dark gray, we are painting this room straight up white. I mean really white! Benjamin Moore’s Color of the Year, Simply White, might not even be white enough, and if you aren’t familiar with paint colors, that is almost as white as you can get!
We may DIY some decorative molding on the wall and shiplap the ceiling to keep it interesting, not stark, and I’m playing with the idea of mixing white and black cabinetry.
If you’ve scrolled through the tour of our home, you may have noticed we have a thing for marble. We have marble in both of our upstairs bathrooms and quartzite counters in the kitchen that are very marblesque. I can’t help it, I love marble, It’s so classic, so subtle, yet so dramatic. It is not, however, food friendly, so we choose not to place it in food prep areas. It is porous and will easily etch. Some people are ok with that. We are not.
A great compromise is quartz, a manmade stone. Since marble counters are on trend, tons of counter companies are producing quartz counters that look extremely close to marble. Check out some examples here and here.
I’m also toying with the idea of installing a brass faucet over brushed nickel. I just can’t commit on a decision until the other finish selections are finalized. Decision are hard, you guys!
When we saw the picture of the white kitchen and rustic beam above, Daren and I fell madly in love. If we could, we would both marry this picture. The design for the entire basement is pretty much based on this single photo. We will be mimicking the wood beam in our own bar…. Somehow.
Also, I need your help on the cabinets. Did I mention decisions are hard?
Should we do uppers? I want it to look more bar than kitchen so my first instinct is no. Plus – cost savings! I love the simple look of the picture above. What do you think?
For the lowers, the appliances will have cabinet fronts because I want the look to be as clean as possible. Not to mention, the wall the appliances are on isn’t that long. There would be almost no cabinetry showing if they’re all stainless steel.
To liven up the whiteness of the room, brick will be set and mortared on the wall by the stairs. If you look at the picture above, it is the wall closest to you on the right.
I plan to hang a large chalk board under a picture light like this. I’m hoping Santa will bring E this play kitchen for christmas to place along the wall. Although, the official playroom is in the entertainment room, we will be using this space for big toys and as additional play space. In the future, it may house the hand-me-down foosball table we’ve been hoarding much to my dismay.
We’ll continue to keep you updated on our basement progress via the blog. We are just starting to order and pick out finishes and I am sure this design will be tweaked a little (or a lot) along the way.
To see all our post on the basement click here, and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for behind the scenes peaks.
Tell us what you think in the comments below. Do you love white as much as we do?
