We’ve been hard at work on #MGDxTheCottage since we purchased the home last summer, and we’re excited to share a few updates and design plans with you all on the blog today. Psst… If you missed the “before” post from The Cottage remodel, head there to catch up! Our charming one-story cottage in Orange County, California needed a lot of love, and it’s been so wonderful to see it come to life over the past few months. We’ll be sharing our design mood boards with you, as well as walking you through each space and sharing details on where we’re at and what’s still to come. Let’s dive right in!
The Design
Our aim for the overall design of The Cottage is to keep it cohesive throughout the entire home. From the living room right off the front door to the guest bedroom in the back of the home, we wanted it to feel like one design story from beginning to end. Our color palette is full of all of our favorite neutrals (no surprise there!) with touches of blues, greens, and taupes. It was also important to us to prioritize natural materials textures, so you’ll see a lot of those elements throughout as well! A few of our favorite sources that we’ll be using in the final spaces are the wallpapers from Serena & Lily and Schumacher, and the most beautiful area rugs from Armadillo & Co. We also pulled tile selections from a few of our go-to brands, but more on those as we get into the bathroom spaces below!
Flooring
You may remember from our original reveal post, but we decided to salvage and refinish the original wood floors for a few reasons. We loved the original narrow plank floors for the character they add to the home, plus it allowed us to prioritize budget elsewhere! Above, we patched the floors in the space that used to be the laundry room in order to expand the kitchen design. On the right, we played with a few different stain sample options before deciding on a final finish!
Slabs
We always love slab shopping and getting inspired by all of the beautiful options that are available! For our home, we knew we wanted to work with Bedrosians. They’re our go-to for many of our local Orange County projects, and they have an incredible natural stone selection where we knew we’d find the perfect slabs for each of the spaces in our home. We love to bring as many finishes as we can with us while shopping so we can see in-person how all of the different colors work together. From tiles to paint colors and wallpapers, it’s important to make sure everything looks just right!
Below is one of the final contenders for our kitchen slabs. We always love a bold marble, and the veining on this slab is just so beautiful! We also narrowed down selections for our guest bath and nursery bath spaces, which will both be clad in the prettiest wallcoverings. Keep scrolling to see the slabs installed in the space!
Living Room
The front living room will also be clad in a subtle stripe Schumacher wallpaper to add extra charm and character to the space. These windows bring in the prettiest natural light to the space, so we need to find the perfect window coverings. We’ll be working with The Shade Store throughout the home, and we can’t wait to finalize our selections!
Hallway
In this hallway of The Cottage remodel (and throughout the rest of the home!), we just had our new doors, base, and case installed. Painting is up next, and we’re just working on the final paint color selections to pass along to our painters. We always bring in lots of samples to see how the colors show up with the natural light and other tones in the space.
We also converted a once-unusable closet area into a laundry folding area with tons of storage. It may not look like much, but it’s going to make the space so much more functional! Lastly, we opted for matte black door hardware from one of our go-to brands – Emtek. We ordered the prettiest levers with round rosettes, and can’t wait to see them on our new doors!
Main Bath
Our new main bath is shaping up to be the dreamiest space! Our new shower was framed and drywalled, and we found the prettiest marble selections from Walker Zanger for the floor tile and wall tile. We played around with a few different layout options to see what worked best in the space. Then, we laid out a larger selection so we could blend all of the natural stone and variation on the floors. For the wall tile, we cut down a classic carrara marble tile to 4×8″ and laid them in an offset pattern.
Just this week, our vanity and the prettiest honed carrarra marble slabs were installed, too. Plumbing fixtures from Kallista are up next!
Nursery Bath
The nursery bath may just be our favorite space in the entire home. It’s so sweet, and we love the muted palette! On the floors, we opted for a checkerboard pattern with two variations of Zia Tile‘s classic zellige square tiles. On the shower walls, we switched the direction of the tiles and stuck to the all-white color palette. Lots more pretty details to come in here as we move along!
Our marble slab countertops were installed, too, along with the cutest backsplash detail! We also decided on a final vanity paint color (pictured above) and love the way it complements the tile and wallpaper selections!
Kitchen
In the kitchen, we officially have cabinets! We also installed our farmhouse sink and the slab countertops (pictured below). We’ll have a mix of upper cabinets and open shelving in the Cottage remodel, and have a range and hood from Café Appliances ready to be installed soon! This space has been so exciting to work on, since we completely changed the layout and expanded into the previous laundry room space to expand the footprint.
For countertops, we decided on this beautiful Calacatta marble slab from Bedrosians. The details on the kitchen island are what marble dreams are made of! You’re probably familiar with our love of natural stone by now, but it really does take the cake.
We’re currently finalizing a cabinetry paint color, and are debating on a few pretty putty hues! Lee’s Painting Company is starting paint this week, so we’re also committing to our all-over house white. Below, catch a sneak peek of the hues we’re considering plus our new backsplash! Next up in the kitchen, Kallista plumbing fixtures, Armac Martin hardware, and new window coverings from The Shade Store!
Guest Bath
The final space we’ve been working on in The Cottage remodel so far is the guest bathroom! We played with a few different tile layouts for the main floor with these beautiful slate tiles from Clé Tile. Ultimately, we decided on this fun stacked pattern! The shower walls are clad in classic 3×6″ carrara marble tile, and the shower floor is these fun penny rounds, all from Clé! Our new Kallista plumbing fixtures are going in soon. Then, we’ll also be adding this pretty floral wallpaper for extra charm.
To keep up as we head into the final stretch of The Cottage remodel, make sure you’re following along on Instagram! We also have Story highlights with all of our progress so far. So, browse those to catch up and see more of the process behind the scenes. We hope you’ve enjoyed following along with our personal home remodel. It’s been so special to share it with you all and your support means so much. We can’t wait to move in soon and share the final spaces on Instagram and here on the blog. Until next time!