One Room Challenge - Week 5...already?!?!?

I'm starting to get a little worried that we're not going to be finished with this kitchen remodel by the end of the One Room Challenge, even with the extra week. My contractor is doing his best, and I've pretty much done everything I can ahead of time to make sure it runs smoothly.

I couldn't even bring myself to blog about it last week - we were at that point of just holes in the floor and waiting ... while we wash dishes in the bathtub and eat mostly sandwiches and cereal - I felt overwhelmed and frustrated and tired and tried to not think about it.

The guys are here all the time, they just taped and mudded today, which means we will hopefully have cabinets by the end of the week!

In the meantime, things are starting to be delivered and we've accumulated quite a nice pile in the garage. The pendant lights for over the island and the chandelier for the dining area were delivered today.

While I've been chewing my nails down to the quick, I've been getting inspired and making decisions about how my kitchen is going to be styled. Open shelving means that dishes, cookware, cookbooks, utensils, etc are on display, so they need to look good. After spending all the time, money, and effort on a new kitchen, I don't want to have it end up looking like the "bric-a-brac" aisle in Goodwill.

The overall feel is casual, easy, and natural. I love color, but too much will undue the neutral and peaceful palette that I have going on in the kitchen's finishes. So a little restraint is in order.

Some of my inspiration:

Let me just say that I doubt that the above shelves stay that beautiful all the time. It's just not possible to have your home look perfect every day. I used to stress over things not looking magazine worthy, but I've relaxed a lot (my family is glad!) and now I keep it a decent amount of "pretty" and then put the rest away for when the queen comes to visit or when magazine's come over to do photoshoots (wink). Or when I am selling the house, in which case, it is a very edited version of a photoshoot type style.

However, it needs to be pretty enough even for everyday so that looking at it makes me feel joy rather than annoyance, frustration, or stress.

Some pretty stuff that I like:

Here's fingers crossed that I've got something to show you next week!

In the meantime, go check out the rest of the amazing transformations by the other bloggers over at the One Room Challenge!