Wow. Only one week left until the full reveals for the One Room Challenge and I am admittedly feeling a "little" bummed, but not stressed. Things are happening slower than I'd like, but I think that's just life. I have to make a choice to be at peace that I'm keeping my priorities in line. :-) If you're just joining, you can see the first post and vision HERE. And here is the before when our house was a vacation rental.

****Update: here is the entire series

Week 1: The Vision and Before Photos

Week 2: Painting the Cabinets

Week 3: Purging, Storage and Organization Solutions in the Kitchen

Week 4: Herringbone Tile

Week 5: Evaluating Progress

Week 6: Kitchen Reveal

Our lighting will most likely arrive today or tomorrow and I CAN'T WAIT! I feel like it is going to make such a statement while providing the much need function of more light.

We chose the Hinkley Fulton Bronze Island Pendant Light (shown above) from Lamps Plus. I'm thankful for the opportunity to work with them, and while this is not a sponsored post, they did work with us to provide lighting for our kitchen. Not just that, but when I was struggling with a few options and dimensions, they were so very helpful in giving advice on the right fit. They are known for legit great customer service like that as I've heard from others time and time again.

It really was quite the dilemma finding the perfect light because we are dealing with wanting the most number of bulbs/amount of light possible, yet have low 7.5' high ceilings, PLUS the higher full bar height. We did not want to rewire and work with what we already had. We needed a lighting option that dealt with ALL of those factors, not to mention while adding character AND creating a visually streamlined look. I can't wait to see this installed and share next week!

Last week I talked about how the husband and I talked about and agreed on herringbone tile. I am SO happy about this!!! As a family in full-fledged hunting season (deer and elk), he has been gone every weekend for the past month, so this part of the project won't be rushed. We'll hopefully have the window trimmed out and the tile installed before Thanksgiving though, so I hope you'll come back to see how that makes a difference from next week's reveal (which I think is spectacular in and of itself btw!).

As for the nook next to the kitchen cabinets, it is coming along with my favorite rustic desk and some blue coral artwork. From drapes to chairs, to the kitchen rug, it feels like it's coming together nicely with the finishing touches. I'd love to paint or wallpaper that part of the wall where this desk is, but it won't look quite right until the tile is installed with the pencil molding in place (this gives the installed tile that finished edge/look).

Because it was kind of a "down week", I directed some energy into working on lightening our fireplace stone. Our kitchen, dining and living are all open in one small area, so although I was focusing specifically on the kitchen portion for this challenge, it only makes sense to work on the other areas when I can so they are compliment each other. It has been a bit tedious, but easy to whitewash the flagstone. See the difference already! This was after the first layer of graywashing the stone before whitewashing it to make it even lighter, and I am painting the dark wood mantle the same white paint as the kitchen.

I love to "shop our home" occasionally and move things around for a different look and feel. Because we are in the fall/winter season here at our beach house and not walking on the beach as much, I opted to use this rug of ours below (found on eBay!). Since it is a smaller "scatter" type of rug, it has moved often over the past year, but I think will work perfectly in our kitchen in front of the sink. I love the kilim look and will put it on top of our memory foam mat to keep things comfortable and not slipping around. These don't look so pretty by themselves, but they make ALL the difference in comfort, so throwing a pretty rug over the top works great.