A few years ago, my husband and I, as newlyweds, purchased our first home together. It was a pre-construction, and move in was set for summer 2015. Due to, literally every unforeseen circumstances, we have just moved into our new home this past February, that has three bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths. (Which has also been the reason for my recent disappearance.)

Due to the delays, there were a few things we’ve realized that we had the time to do, like save, plan and invest. Staying in our tiny apartment for those extra years, was definitely a strain to our lifestyle, but as time went on, both of us were able to continue to save money, as we tried to live with our new budget.

We spent a lot of time figuring out how we were going to use the space; today, a year from now, and five years from now. We bought a stacked town house, aka too many stairs – but it’s turning out to be a great workout. Our main floor is an open concept living space that hosts our living, dining, cooking and entertaining. This is my favourite space, probably because it’s the most complete, but also because I’ve been shopping for most of these pieces over the last few years, and at last I can see them.

Today I’m revealing kitchen to you, and over the next few months, stayed tuned as I complete each room and share with you our journey as we make this space our home.

Trevor, and I are entertainers. We love to host, so creating a kitchen and dining area that made sense for group gatherings was really important to both of us. We started with keeping things open – which meant loosing our upper cabinets and allowing our beautiful collection of dinnerware and serving pieces to shine. We found sturdy and beautiful floating shelves from Silicate + Studio, a design studio and lab in Idaho, and fell in love with the perfect imperfections of their wood pieces.