Flooring.

Ok...I have decided on the flooring in my kitchen.

I decided that I need to be bold and just do it.

Are you ready...?

I'm totally doing checkerboard. 

Flooring has been on my mind a lot lately because we're refinishing our hardwood floor in our master bedroom this weekend.  After that...the bed from this post will be revealed (along with our *new* floor).  Woot woot!  Next weekend we're going to be finishing the rest of the hardwood floors throughout the top floor...depending on how the bedroom goes. 

In our top floor, we have about 850 square feet.  It's where we do the majority of our living because the basement houses our office and since both of us work at home and our clients aren't supposed to hear little people giggling...we don't go downstairs as a family unless neither of us is working.  So...upstairs has turned into the priority.

We have the hardwood floors all throughout the top floor.  But the ones in the kitchen are in pretty rough shape.  Also...I'm worried about water damage if there were ever plumbing issues...and since this is a 60+ year old home, there are bound to be some plumbing issues.  Because of this...I didn't want to invest in installing new hardwood in the kitchen.  This kinda left me at a loss however, because I wanted something that would be as classy as the hardwood (we're staining it REALLY dark...not black, but almost) but would also fit in with the decor.  Well folks...I found my inspiration picture...

Here it is...

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Um...LOVE!  And what's more...my kitchen is almost that size.  A bit tighter...but almost.  I was planning on having a mini butchers table in the middle and white cabinets as well!  I can't tell you how excited I was to see this picture!  I love everything about this kitchen!  But...ours is going to be a bit different.  Here's how...

I am a BIG believer in utilizing every square inch of space.  SO!  Our cabinets are going to be pushed all the way to the ceiling and a shelf is going to be put underneath like in this kitchen...

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So just picture the upper cabinets in the picture above in the inspiration kitchen...it'll be pretty, yes?  :)

Um...I digress.  Back to the flooring.  Anywhoo...I LOVE the checkerboard in my inspiration picture.  SO pretty!  It's classy, it's timeless, and in my opinion...in ties all the elements in the kitchen together.  The clean lines of the cabinets with the rustic butcher block and the elegant chandelier.  

I did notice something though...the checkerboard HAS to be put in on a diagonal, otherwise it can end up looking like this...

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Um...terrible.  It looks like they tried to put a kitchen in the garage.  Not cool...(I won't even go into the other shudder inducing elements of the kitchen...just focus on the floor)

I decided I had to see what else was out there and I did some more digging.  Now, our kitchen/dining area is sooooooooooo small that our table currently is VERY out of place due to some VERY poor planning.  I had decided a looooooooong time ago that I was going to fix this by relocating the dishwasher and putting in a window seat.  Since then, I've seen window seats all over!  This one is my favorite though...

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Ummmmm...love.  This is actually Kate Spade's Manhattan apartment kitchen and seriously...LOVE!  I think I might just have to steal the stripes on the window seat idea.  They work so so well with the checkerboard.  So there is the plan.  I'm getting very excited.  But...it's just gonna have to wait until the wood floors are finished.  I'm way excited to share those before and after pictures.  So stay tuned!  

In the meantime...here are some more checkerboard pictures...

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