Part two of the kitchen ren­o­va­tion series: inspi­ra­tion pho­tos! These are some of the most fun things to look at dur­ing any ren­o­va­tion, in my opin­ion – I love to see what direc­tion the design was headed based on pho­tos of other spaces. Here are some of the prob­a­bly many pho­tos that inspired our bud­get ren­o­va­tion with the design details that were impor­tant to us. Ulti­mately, my mate­ri­als list was strictly: black, brass, Car­rara mar­ble, sub­way tile, sil­ver, crys­tal and warm, worn wood.

Roman and Williams’ 211 Eliz­a­beth: I love… no… I am in love with the com­bi­na­tion of black-painted wood­work and trim with white walls & wood floors.

Neo­clas­si­cal trim, be still my heart. I’m a sucker for his­tor­i­cal wood­work that’s been painted layer upon layer.

This is the faucet of my dreams: the Brass Deck-Mounted Faucet x Bar­ber Wil­son which is $716 and not avail­able within an 8-week period. I did not have either the $716 or the 8-week wait­ing period, so we did with­out. But save this as a memo for a super­futer, richer self. Any­how… key ele­ments of our kitchen are above: Car­rara mar­ble, white tile with black-as-coal grout and lots of brass accents.

Below, the sub­way wall made me gasp the first time I saw it. The cap­tion on the orig­i­nal photo read “Store cup­boards in the larder at Ard­kin­glas. The house was built in 1907 for Sir Andrew Noble to designs by Sir Robert Lorimer.” Them some foncy cupboards!

The Walden, Brooklyn.

Look at those beau­ti­ful draw­ers, shelves, coun­ters and cab­i­nets. Mmm.

Crys­tal glass­ware and sil­ver in a wooden liquor cabinet.

MMM, what I love about this is that glossy black upper and the lower [oak?] car­pen­try. More brass and less green.

I thor­oughly enjoy all the ele­ments of this kitchen: mar­ble slab counter, black cab­i­nets with brass pulls, indus­trial lab barstool, white sub­way tile back­splash with dark grout, indus­trial range, and while I do love that hood, it’s def­i­nitely out of the budget.

LONG-ESTABLISHED KITCHEN FAVORITE of MINE

Black appli­ances, white coun­ter­tops, dark wood cab­i­nets. Also, this kitchen’s lay­out was sim­i­lar to ours, although we don’t have a true island. We have a penin­sula. *Remem­ber, I only promise to be mildly entertaining.

METAL-ENCASED WINDOWS / CABINETS / CABINET COLOR + PULLS / SUBWAY TILES in NATE BERKUS’ NYC KITCHEN RENO

♥ROMAN AND WILLIAMS PERSONAL SPACE // SO MUCH TO DROOL OVER HERE

The bar at the Stan­dard, NYC by Roman and Williams. Also, this is the place where in real-life on Decem­ber 30th, 2011 the gang of four aka Marc, Steven, Ian and I met up with Jess and Mike… awk­ward! Just kid­ding, it was nice to meet you Mike.