CREATING MY DREAM KITCHEN WITH A MIRRORED TILE BACKSPLASH

OMG. You guys. I am obsessed and I mean obsessed with my new townhome kitchen.

Honestly, when I first saw this home in photos, I was completely turned off by the kitchen even though the rest of the home was absolutely perfect for us. Luckily, I’ve always been a visionary and I actually enjoy imagining up a new potential for a space that is less than stellar. Living in Manhattan really helped me hone this skill.

I am a city girl. I love to live near the hustle and bustle. I love to be able to walk to coffee shops, be close to a gourmet grocery store and high end shopping centers. Some people would prefer to live a little outside of the city in order to have a bigger space but I am just NOT one of those people. Put me in the smallest home in the ritziest part of town and I’m happy as a peach in Summer. So for me, that means I have to work with what I can and if that means a smaller space, so be it.

When I decided to manifest my first home, the very first thing on my list was an all white and super bright kitchen. So, even though the kitchen was horrid looking and super small, I knew a little white paint would do the trick.

Let me walk you through this kitchen renovation process…..

So here are a few photos of the kitchen from the listing. Bleh. This color of wood literally makes me cringe. I also abhor the backsplash, it literally makes zero sense to me why someone would take a completely bright, naturally lit kitchen and put warm taupe, beige with black appliances. Like, but why?

Anyway, I didn’t hate the layout, loooooved the natural light and also especially liked this little breakfast nook space off of the side of the kitchen because for me, as a work from home woman, I need a well lit office space and this is perfect to make my jewelry and film content for the House of Bliss!

I wasn’t really in love with anything in this kitchen but I knew I had to make it work. And, I did not have an unlimited budget to work with but knew I could do something without too much of an investment so here’s what I decided to do…

MY KITCHEN DESIGN PROCESS…

1) Instinctively, I knew I wanted to have the cabinets painted white. I’ve done this in so many clients homes and every time it completely transforms the kitchen so this is like my go-to move. For a second, I even considered purchasing new cabinetry from IKEA because they really have such good, modern cabinet looks and sizes. But, these ugly wood cabinets are BRAND SPANKING NEW and part of me just felt like it would be a waste to buy all new cabinets (not to mention installation) so I brought in a team to paint them a bright satin white.

2) So, the one thing I don’t hate about the kitchen is the black stone countertop. It is actually really beautiful and has a nice light reflection to it which I thought would be totally chic for an all white kitchen. So, I decided to leave that.

3) Get rid of that awful backsplash. Ugh. If I had to do only one thing, it would have been the backsplash. The day I got the keys to my new home, I had them rip it out immediately. lol

INSPIRATION:

So here is one of my inspiration photos that I found and fell in love with. A beautiful, bright white kitchen with a little bit of black. It feels chic, bright and modern and I just kind of really love the black and white contrast.

I have always been obsessed with white subway tile in the kitchen, see this post for 13 of my favorite looks.

I headed to the tile store and because I knew they would have an extensive selection on backsplashes for me to look at, I headed straight for the simple all white tile. And after falling in love with the above photo, I was leaning toward an all white herringbone tile look. This one section of all white tile literally had so many options, I kind of felt overwhelmed by the patterns.

After mulling it over for a bit, I decided to go with the small herringbone tile. I thought it would look clean, simple and brighten up the space so well…until….

I spent over an hour walking around inside of the store. Trying to get excited about this very affordable and cute white herringbone tile for my new kitchen. But honestly, this was one of those moments where I had to do a gut check. It wasn’t exciting me at all. AND I have always been one of those people that preaches, “If you aren’t madly in love with it and it doesn’t excite you, it’s not meant for you”.

I DO NOT buy things that I am not obsessed with. Not handbags, shoes, jewelry…nothing. It is a rule and a non-negotiable for me. And here I was with 8 boxes of white herringbone tile I was just not excited about.

I walked over to the marble tiles, the beautiful pearlescent ones, too and nothing was doing it for me.

And then like a ton of bricks, it hit me… “do you have anything in like an antiqued mirror?” Veronica, the super helpful sales person, happily took me to the back section with the pricier tiles (of course) and lo and behold there it was. The most gorgeous, extra large antiqued mirror subway tiles with a bevel that literally just stole my heart.

And even though they were eight times the price of the white herringbone, my heart was pounding of excitement and I just knew these mirrored tiles would be the only thing that could brighten up my white kitchen and my soul even more than white tile.

SIDE NOTE: Now here is another really strong position that the mirrored tiles held for me. In Feng Shui, the stove is the wealth activator of the home. The burners represent health & opportunities for wealth. So, when you place a mirror reflecting what is on the burners, it will multiply and amplify those opportunities for health and wealth.

This is ultimately why I knew the mirrored backsplash was perfect, because it is EXCELLENT Feng Shui for my new home. If you want to learn more things like this, I put it all together in my course,

High Vibe Home : Organize, De-clutter & Decorate your home for harmony and bliss.

I ended up going with the 3 x 12” Antique Mirror Glossy Beveled tile and I am obsessed. To finish the look, I ordered mirrored switch plates because every detail needs to be tended

But here’s the other thing. I think subway tile can be kind of boring. I don’t know, I love a herringbone pattern or something different just not plain subway tile style. So I had my guy lay these in what you call a 1/3 or 33% offset pattern. It’s just a little bit different than the standard subway tile layout. I just think it looks better, a little bit more chic and stylish. So, if you do use subway tile in your home or project, you can try this layout for a little bit of a flair. Here’s what it looks like with my antique mirror tiles…

To top it off, I finished it all off with these chic brushed nickel cabinet pulls. They are clean and modern and really just blend in with the whole vibe. I would have gone for brass or gold but, with the appliances in stainless steel and black, the gold just would not look right.

So here she is, my dazzling little gem of a kitchen. These iphone pictures really don’t do her any justice. Literally a little dream come true for me. She is so beautiful, I literally cannot contain my love for this little kitchen. Anyway, I will be continuing the story on my new home and share all the updates and decor with you so stay tuned…

I hope you enjoyed this post. You may also like:

♥️ Finding the perfect home for you using numerology

Villa Verde: Picking out the right paint colors for your new home

Okay. Here we go.

It’s been a looooooooong time since I have actually blogged about decorating and interiors in personal journal form. These days, I find myself teaching, sharing and educating in my posts. Not that I haven’t been obsessed with interior design, its just that other things in life have taken up a lot of my attention. But now that I have purchased my own home, I can’t help but long to document and diary the process in blog form like I did for so many years. September 2008 (14 years ago) I wrote my first blog post about decorating my apartment in Los Angeles. Funny to think back on how many apartments I’ve had since then. ;) I’m hopeful this process will be enjoyable and inspiring, too.

It’s always been my dream to buy my own home and at the start of this year, I declared 2022 would be there year it would happen. However, with the ridiculously crazy real estate market and because I choose to live in an incredibly expensive part of town, quite honestly…I didn’t think it was going to happen.

June 14th, 2022, I got a notice from my building that it was time to renew my lease or choose to move. I decided to put in a transfer and deposit on a bigger apartment in my current building, because we have completely outgrown our cozy little apartment (toys are everywhere!!). That evening, I had a dream, I couldn’t sleep. A voice came to me and told me that moving into that apartment was a mistake and that I shouldn’t be wasting money paying someone else’s mortgage, that I should be paying my own.

So, that next morning I woke up and looked on our local real estate market website, in Houston they call it HAR. I put in a budget limitation and decided to just see what might possibly pop up in my price range. Typically, nothing in the area I currently live is in my range, so I considered moving farther outside of town. However, as luck and magic would have it, there it was, a cozy little townhome, first day on the market, right down the street from where I currently live in my price range appeared! Literally like magic.

And just like that…I found my perfect little home! (Now the next 30 days were not so smooth and easy but I won’t get into that in this blog post, you can tune into the podcast for the longer version of the story)

Built in 1972, a perfect little 2 bedroom, 2.5 bath townhome in a gated community is our new cozy space and I was so excited to discover that this sweet space is a 4-home in numerology, you can read more about that here. Another things that I loved about this home, was that the walls were painted a bright snow white! I’ve seen so many homes painted in colors that were drab and ugly and did nothing for the space.

Everything in sparkly, bright white gave the energy of a fresh start and I just couldn’t wait to start a new chapter of life in this pretty white home.

July 22, 2022 I closed on my home and got the keys. That very same day, I had a contractor come out and get ready to zhush up my new home. I am not one to mess around. I like to get things going quickly, I think its the Capricorn in me.

I immediately got out my feng shui bagua map and began dreaming of what colors I want to fill the space with. Color is the magic of your space and what you can use to enhance and MANIFEST what you want in life. I teach everything in my High Vibe Home workshop, so if you are interested in learning about this check that out here.

PICKING OUT THE PAINT COLORS

Anytime I set off to decorate a new space, I think about how I want it to feel. One of my favorite places I’ve ever been is Tulum and I knew I wanted it feel earthy and cozy like that. Earthy, exotic, lots of textures, neutrals with pops of natural colors. I have an entire pinterest board with images that have inspired my design vibe, you can peek around here.

I recently created a collection of my crystal jewelry for a few girlfriends and their new wellness spa called Tulum Wellness. If you are in Houston, you must go check it out. The second I walked in, I fell madly in love with the interior and I just knew I wanted my home to be slathered in that Tulum-y , olive green. Here’s the view that really got me!

The color green in Feng Shui represents growth, fertility, abundance, renewal, fresh life force energy and vitality. It helps to forge new pathways of growth in life, it supports you in bringing in money and it also brings a fresh life to family.

Luckily, the master bedroom sits in the upstairs areas of wealth + abundance, fame and reputation and love + relationships. Green will enhance each of those areas so it was a no brainer to decide that my master bedroom would be green.

I went with a color called “Secret Garden” by Sherwin Williams and I am in love with it. It’s like a deep olive green that can almost look black depending on the light.

“Where else can I put some green?” I thought.

So, on the downstairs floor I’ve got a small powder bath and it sits in the Family + Growth area of the feng shui bagua…green perfectly enhances this space too AND I always think small rooms needs a dark color to really make them feel impactful. So, my little powder bath will also be in Secret Garden green.

I also always love to give each name I live in a home because that’s what the British do and also because, why not? Lol. My last place that I painted all black was called ‘Villa Noir’ and this time I’m calling my new home ‘Villa Verde’. (verde is spanish for green).

Right now, I literally want green everything!!!!

When I decide on paint colors, I always go with my gut. Just like when I select my crystals. Your intuition will always know what colors will feel best to you. I would constantly have to remind my clients that when you get in your head about picking a color, you’ll probably end up picking one you hate. When you calm your mind, tune into your intuition, you will naturally be drawn to the right colors for you. Everyone gets so into the colors, and the lighting and whats right and wrong. But no one else has your eyes and sees things how you do. It’s so important that you pick what looks harmonious and beautiful to you!

My sweet little boy knew exactly what he wanted for his room. He wanted his room to be red, his favorite color. However, that wasn’t going to work for a wall color. Lol.

So, I told him that might be a little much, so we can opt for something in blue or grey. Two colors that work on the south side of the feng shui bagua map ( where his room is ) really well.

He ended up going with a really beautiful color called Peacock Blue, which we both love. It’s so much fun to bring in your child to the design process, he loved picking out his favorite blue. I love helping foster and nurture his confidence in making decisions and trusting his own opinions. That was something that took me years to master.

As for the rest of the home, I wanted to leave it white so that I could layer it up with colors through art + furnishings. However, I kept staring at this photo of my old office at Villa Noir. I just couldn’t get those gorgeous black walls off of my mind.

So, I decided to paint one of the walls in my office (which technically is the breakfast nook, but I don’t breakfast so..) black. Just an accent wall to make the space pop like this one did so long ago. I will also be painting the wall where the tv will go in the living room black…(see the inspiration image below via pinterest)

That’s it for now, I will be blogging and sharing each step of this process so stay tuned for the next post.