ONE ROOM CHALLENGE // WEEK 1 // MODERN RANCH-STYLE KITCHEN

Good news. This before also has an after - before the after. 

Welcome to Week 1 of The One Room Challenge, the bi-annual, room makeover bonanza created by Linda of Calling it Home. This virtual event takes the design community by storm - and unites bloggers and design enthusiasts alike - inspiring, motivating and creating virtual friendships all around. All eyes will be on the twenty design bloggers hand-picked to lead the charge in making over a room of their choice over the course of 6 weeks, all the whilst blogging and photographing their progress on Wednesday of each week. 

How do I fit in? I'm throwing my hat into the ring each Thursday as a guest participant after a two-season hiatus from the event- and frankly, a much, much too long break away from the ol' blog. 

I've really missed it. 

I've really missed you- and my hope is that this event will bring me back around to doing something I truly love - connecting with you all about our homes and the big (and even not so big) things we do around them to make life more comfortable, efficient and most certainly pretty. 

This round - I'm completing the long-awaited remodel on our kitchen.

This will be the fifth space in our home I've tackled thanks in part to all the moral support I've received from so many of you throughout previous ORC seasons. Check out previous designs completed for our guest bath, master bedroom, my husband's home office and my own home-based workspace.

So let's get to it.

These are the current bones I'm working with:

But it hasn't always looked like this. This is actually the transitional "after" that has served us well for the last six years while we planned and plotted for the eventual overhaul of this space. When we moved in, we assumed a clean, but dated kitchen area from the original homeowners - complete with tile counters, cabinetry and layout circa 1967. We gussied it up and made it work for us for the short term with some paint, shiny new appliances, hardware and fixtures. But functionally speaking, it has had some modern day challenges for us that I hope will be solved for under the redesign.

Wanna see what it looked like when we moved in? 

 Fast forward to today's landscape. We actually have utilized the room off the kitchen as sort of the eat-in area, complete with built in-bar. So this makeover will include both the immediate cooking and dining areas.

This is the most lived in and traveled room in our house. We cook big family meals here, entertain around our bar and open the slider to wet pool guests running in to use the bathroom. It's a critical space for us and one we want to make work more efficiently. 

Next week - more about our current state, the things we hope to change over the next six weeks and the plan to get us there.

In the meantime, please be sure to check out all of the other designs in the works by 200+ talented design enthusiasts and bloggers over at Calling It Home.