White Kitchen with Brick Backsplash

Remember when our dream home was under construction and it was difficult to imagine how our white kitchen with brick backsplash was going to turn out?

With high, mirrored cabinets, was it going to look ridiculous? You can bet I had more than a couple sleepless nights worrying that is was.

We have now been happily enjoying our home sweet home in the New Mexico mountains for almost 3 years. The best part?

The kitchen!

White Kitchen with Brick Backsplash

I've had a reader email to ask about our wood ceiling and thought my other blog readers might enjoy having the same information. Here you go:

Q. What kind of wood is the ceiling in your house? It is beautiful. We are looking at rough-cut pine for a cabin that we are renovating. Debating on if we need to stain or seal it.

A. Our ceiling is actually just the everyday pine tongue and groove boards they sell at Lowes and Home Depot. The reason ours looks different is that we had them installed upside down so that the rough side shows instead of the smooth side, which created more variation when stained. Oh, and the stain we used is from Sherwin Williams. It's called Hawthorne. More than 3 years into our new home, we are still happy about how the ceiling turned out. I wish I could say the same for our floors!

Sexy Nerd built the chandeliers (3 total, including the adjoining living room) with hammered copper to match our hammered copper apron sink.

Our pantry bat is from one of my favorite online shops, Uncommon Goods.

I'm a firm believer that the secret to inviting interior design lies in the details. These silver deer cabinet knobs have made me enjoy our white kitchen all the more.

When we designed our custom home, we made sure to include a spot for Ocho. Remember when Sexy Nerd accidentally broke off one of his legs? Whoops!

I have a growing collection of orchids, all rescued from the clearance section of the grocery store. This fellow moved with us from our old house and blooms for months at a time. Not bad for $0.99.

The cabinets are not a warm white or a cool white or a white with any sort of tint whatsoever - just a pure, 0000 white.

The wreath over our stove was a $20 clearance find at Home Goods. Score!

Sexy Nerd installed the under cabinet lighting himself and built the wood island. He's so handy. I think I will keep him around.

I'll tire of doing dishes long before I tire of the view outside our kitchen window. That said, dishes are less of a chore with a dishwasher on each side of the apron sink.

Our plan has always been to continue the red brick backsplash all the way up the vaulted ceiling. It's scary to install brick up there though! Maybe one day.

Our oven has a secret. It's a Samsung Flex Duo, which can simultaneously bake at two different temperatures thanks to a removable divider. It squeezes dual ovens into a small footprint. We also love, love, love the induction cooktop (not to be confused with an electric cooktop) because it's so easy to clean.

Cake Mix Pancakes

This reader-favorite recipe is *almost* as popular as my Cake Mix Cookie Bars recipe . When making Cake Mix pancakes , the scrumptious possibilities are endless. Red Velvet cake mix pancakes. Chocolate cake mix pancakes. Butter Pecan cake mix pancakes. Funfetti cake mix pancakes. (Yes, Funfetti cake mix pancakes!) With this 2-ingredient recipe, you can turn your favorite cake mix into your favorite pancakes. Pancake making at its finest. Cake Mix Pancakes Personally, I think my funny napkin is the icing on the (pan)cake. It's Sunday morning and you're planning to do all the things today - scrub those grody baseboards, polish your quartz countertop that was supposed to be low maintenance but actually isn't at all, sort through the disaster that is the freezer. While on your superhuman kick, you think I'm going to make my family pancakes for breakfast. Not just any pancakes - the best pancakes ever. I may even serve them as breakfast in bed! You pu

10 Canned Cinnamon Roll Hacks

You're in for a treat. Today I'm sharing my best canned cinnamon roll hacks and improvements for turning store-bought cinnamon rolls, like the Pillsbury Grands ones or even the store brand, into something special. Dry cinnamon rolls? No thank you. They need to be OOEY and GOOEY. That's just Cinnamon Roll 101. All of these ideas keep Pillsbury canned cinnamon rolls soft, company-worthy, and delicious. These are also great for taking homemade cinnamon rolls up a notch, but what a pain that is. With these better-than-homemade canned cinnamon roll hacks, you'll never bother to bake them from scratch again. Test out some of these ideas tomorrow. Won't it be nice to dig into a mouthwatering cinnamon roll for breakfast? You can't get a better start to your day than that. Canned Cinnamon Roll Hacks Actually, make that 11 easy ways to improve store-bought cinnamon rolls: you can top them with homemade coffee whipped cream . Yum! Nope, make that 12 canned cinnam

Chemical Peel Before & After

This article has been updated! My new chemical peel post, which includes pricing, Jessner peel before and after photos, product recommendations, and a helpful timeline for scheduling your treatments, is at the bottom. My original Jessner peel post (one of the most popular on my site of all time) is at the beginning. Original Chemical Peel Article Considering a chemical peel? I recently underwent my first Jessner peel and thought I'd share my results, post a Jessner peel review, and answer some frequently asked chemical peel questions. (I'm guessing that "Does a chemical peel hurt?" is a biggie!) I'd been planning to order an over-the-counter peel when we were in Iceland , but my computer led me a different direction. I decided to do this on a whim after Groupon greeted me one morning with a great $40 chemical peel deal. Now, I can read your mind. You just gasped in horror and thought You trusted your face to a discount chemical peel?! You're wondering w

Hello Fresh Complaints

Hello, my bloggy friends. I have a HelloFresh complaint and believe they are pulling a scam. Yours truly came *this close* to falling for it. Maybe scam is too harsh of a word. Sneaky? You can decide for yourself. The fact that there are so many Hello Fresh complaints online does seem suspicious. My main complaint about Hello Fresh has to do with their promotional rate, which seems like it is set up to be intentionally misleading (more on this below). Despite so many people complaining about being charged more than they thought they'd agreed to, Hello Fresh maintains this as part of their business model and continues to mislead. So it's intentional, right? I do not recommend Hello Fresh. For starters, the service is just ingredients-by-mail with recipes, not meals. You can buy your own ingredients for much less, especially now that most grocery stores conveniently offer pickup and delivery. Excellent recipes are easy to find. Click here for a list of top-rated, reader-favorit

Sharing Funny Memes

Funny Memes Post 2 of 3: kittydeschanel.com/2021/05/funny-dog-memes.html Funny Memes Post 3 of 3: https://www.kittydeschanel.com/2021/12/christmas-memes.html You know those people who have nothing better to do than browse through memes for hours at a time, many of which are in poor taste? Yeah, I'm one of them. Oh, except I actually do have so much to do and absolutely should not be scrolling through memes. Just try and stop me. Covering everything from working to cake, here are my Top Funny Memes from the last week: More Funny Memes to Make You Smile: The last one was created by yours truly. Kitty Deschanel - now a source for funny dog memes AND original memes! Funny Memes Post 2 of 3: kittydeschanel.com/2021/05/funny-dog-memes.html Funny Memes Post 3 of 3: kittydeschanel.com/2021/12/christmas-memes.html

Window Seat Idea - Dream Home Inspiration of the Day

See it? Waaay at the back of the photo? I like how the window seat extends past the window all the way to the wall. How about you? If that's not your style, how about one of these lovely window seats? I'll seat you, my pretty, and your little dog too. How perfect would this be in a home office? I'd swap out that wimpy rug with a larger one.

Celebrating 10 Years with Our Amerisleep AS3 Mattress

My Amerisleep AS3 Unboxing Video (Surprise, my voice is ridiculous!) If I can (just barely) do it, you can totally tackle a bed-in-a-box by yourself. Updated 10/15/22 Amerisleep's AS5 was recently featured as the 'Best Soft Mattress in a Box' by Good Housekeeping , with the panel of reviewers noting: Pressure relief for side sleepers Taller than other boxed mattresses Good customer service Amerisleep Mattress Reviews We've been happy Amerisleep customers since purchasing our first AS3 mattress more than 9 years ago. Now we also have an AS2 and an AS4 (the AS3 is still our favorite). Born with chronic insomnia (even as a baby - my family insists I was a nightmare), the struggle to improve my sleep is my life. My husband, the overly-analytical mechanical engineer, was initially skeptical of a mail-order mattress, but he was quickly won over. 2012: Wine glass test, sans wine. I was fairly confident our brand-new mattress would pass with f

Christmas Memes and More

Inspired by the popularity of my other memes posts, Funny Memes and Dog Memes , I have a new collection of memes for you to enjoy. I waste my life on the internet so you don't have to. Bookmark this post because I'll be adding to it as I find new memes for Xmas. Christmas Memes and More Fair warning that some of these are in poor taste. Isn't that usually the funniest meme?

Kitty Deschanel

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