First Home: Kitchen and Dining

May 4, 2017 I became a homeowner. This was definitely an exciting time for me, but EXTRA exciting because it meant I would have an entire place to myself that was a blank canvas waiting to be Ellen-ified. I am so incredibly grateful for my family and friends, but especially my mom and dad, who were completely willing to help me rip this place apart and put it back together. It’s so crazy to me even now looking back at what my first home purchase used to look like. This place was quite the renovation experience—I got to experience hand ripping out probably like 2,000 heavy duty staples that were inside the baseboards, leftover from the previous carpet, that had to go before laying down the laminate flooring… I will go into more detail on the renovations in a friends and family appreciation at a later date. For now, I want to point out a couple of my favorite details in my kitchen and dining room that made it especially special.

First of all, my dining table and chairs set. It was my DREAM growing up for my first home to be the same home that my mom purchased as her first home, which was a little yellow house in South Fargo. For that to have happened, a lot of things would have had to have gone very serendipitously for me, which they didn’t. However, I did inherit the first dining table and chairs set that my mom got for herself! Probably about 25 years later, they are still in great shape and as cute as ever. People have only sat on a chair and it’s fallen a part on them like 40 times or so…. ;)

My second favorite part of this area of the house is my art collection, which I’ve acquired throughout my travels in Europe. My artwork is a combination of hand painted original art pieces that I found at various art street fairs in France and random street vendors in Italy. Every piece showcases a landmark that I visited during my time there, so whenever I eat dinner, I can just glance over at Nostalgia Wall and go back to those dreamy times exploring new lands. I also wanted to go for a more unconventional way of framing—something that wasn’t just sticking them in frames—and I came up with this stained butcher block solution. I’m very proud of that super simple project because it was actually an idea that I came up with and was able to execute proficiently without it ending up looking like a Pinterest fail.

A final favorite of mine is my little collection of vases that I occasionally display on my island. The vases are actually glass water bottles from Starbucks’ “You Were Here” collection. When I did use them as water bottles, I unfortunately dropped them one too many times and decided that I was going to use the ones I had left for another purpose. The ones featured on the island now are Vegas, Chicago, and D.C. which I have to say Vegas and D.C. are probably two of my favorite urban places. Chicago, I’ve never actually been to, that one just serves as a tribute to Chicago O’Hare that I’ve spent far too many hours in. I do love to travel and most often when I’m traveling around in the states, it’s on adventures with my family and friends so it makes me think of all of the good memories I’ve made with them all over the country.

^ Click on the carousal above to see more pics of the “before” ^

My favorite thing about having my own place is finding ways to incorporate personal details into the aesthetics. I think too often the really nice looking spaces that I and many others find their inspiration from do look beautiful, but they lack the aspects that really make it your personal home. For my next home, which I just recently moved into, I have many more ideas on personal artwork creations that I can’t wait to get started on!