#anglinabode coffee bar before + after

So excited to finally share one of my favorite spots in our new home- the coffee bar! This space used to be a blank, open corner- and I knew immediately upon walking in the house that there needed to be something there to draw you in. Here’s the before:

Soooo much blah. There were several issues here we had to deal with:

• The weirdo uplights that are along the walls above the doors and windows. We removed those ASAP.

• The french doors (open in the above image) that led to the master bedroom. I have nothing against french doors, but I did not want them leading to my bedroom off the main living space- especially when my son has friends over (yikes!)- so we closed in this opening a bit and made it a regular door.

• The thermostat had to be moved.

• The AC vent was an issue- because I wanted to do lower cabinets there. I am pretty proud of our solution!

• Sooooo much electrical work had to happen. Light switches and outlets needed to be moved, and I added sconces, under cabinet lights, pot lights and a chandelier. Because this room was originally a porch, there is NO attic space so installing all of this was a real task I’m thankful our contractors were up for.

The original view from the main hallway. Unfortunately, all of these shelves are now gone, but it’s for the better, I promise! You can see how this corner is visible at the end of the hall.

Here is my Coffee Bar Inspo:

Coffee Bar by Lissa Anglin

Here is the area mid-construction. This home has been renovated at least 2 times before this one- you could see all the layers and modifications once the walls were peeled back. Poor old house- I hope we will do her justice and make this the last renovation.

Annnnnnnd here’s how it turned out!

I’d originally thought about doing green cabinetry (Relentless Olive by Sherwin Williams, which is on our kitchen island), but chose to keep it white (Pure White by Sherwin Williams) so that this potentially dark corner stayed as light and bright as possible.

It was important to me to have a large decorative element (the open shelving) to draw you into the space from the front door. This corner is the perfect landing space for everyone, and it perfectly accommodates a solo cup of coffee or a bunch of rowdy kids!

One day, I’d love to find a tulip table to put in place of my vintage black one here, but for now this table is serving us well!

I mentioned the issue of re-routing the AC vent earlier, and the solution was to create a vent on the side of the bottom cabinets (see that gold box? It’s actually a vent!). We also created a new vent (also housed inside the lower cabinets) into our bedroom on the other side of this wall to keep the air flowing. Amazingly, we still have quite a bit of storage in those cabinets.

When I shared this corner on Instagram, many people thought this was actually my kitchen space- and it sort of is! It is open to the kitchen, so it feels like an extension of the kitchen, really.

This little corner packs quite a bit in to keep it super functional for our family. I didn’t want to have to walk all the way across the room just to throw away old coffee grinds or to fill up the pot. It includes:

• pull out trash can

• double drawer fridge

• nugget ice maker

• RO system

• small sink

This little area of our home is where I splurged the most. Having the extra drink space and “Sonic ice” has really made working from home enjoyable- and I also love the fact that everything is accessible for the kids.

Another thing I was very intentional about was the black quartz sink. Knowing that there would be a LOT of coffee in this sink, I wanted to avoid having to bleach it often, and the black sink has been so wonderful for that!

Here’s a “lights on” image- we put the sconces, chandelier and pot lights on all different switches and have really enjoyed the ability to adjust the lighting to the time of day/mood. The bulbs inside the sconces are actually grow lights and I keep them on all day so that my planties get the sun they need.

For the glass in the upper cabinet, I chose rain glass. I’m not into the frosted look, but I also wanted a little diffusion on it. I really love the way it turned out!

I’m going to do my best to link everything pictured here:

White Paint Color: Pure White by Sherwin Williams. Our trim, cabinets and walls are all this color and it has made painting the whole house (my primary job in this reno) SO much easier!

Tile: Saltillo (terracotta) tile from Yates

Countertop: Macaubaus Quartzite purchased from Stone King in Lubbock

Contractor: Re-Purpose Construction

Chandelier (I really wanted this one from West Elm, but it was just plain out of budget. In the end, I’m really happy with the one we have and think it is a more appropriate size for the space anyway).

Sconces (these were surprisingly affordable!)

Knobs

Sink

Faucet

Drawer Fridge

Ice Maker

Grow light bulbs (for keeping my plants alive! I put these in the sconces)

Backsplash tile was a clearance find and we almost didn’t have enough to finish the job because it was disappearing from stores so quickly! Thankful my sister picked some up for us in the DFW area so we wouldn’t have a half- finished wall.

Just in case any of you are coffee fanatics like us, here are our coffee makers:

Coffee Pot

Espresso Machine

Coffee Grinder

So, let me know what you think! We are loving our coffee corner and I have so much more to share with you soon!

This post contains affiliate links, on which I will receive a small commission should you purchase anything/sign up/subscribe etc. I would never share something I didn’t actually like or want to share with you, so I wanted to let you know. Sharing affiliate links affords me a few more lattes and it’s always my aim to add value to your life with the brands and products I share. Thanks for supporting me!

#anglinabode kitchen + coffee bar inspo

SO EXCITED to share my vision for the #AnglinAbode kitchen and coffee bar area. First things first- our home is a Chicago brick home built in 1942, which I actually like- there are a lot of warm oranges- and that plus the xeriscaped front yard has always given me a southwest/desert vibe.

For the past several years, I have embraced more of my Texan roots and incorporated desert-style decor into our home. That, coupled with a visit to the Southern California desert earlier this year made me really want to lean into the Modern Desert feel with this home.

Of course, my mid-century-loving heart is still very much alive and so you can expect this home to have a little bit of everything- we can call it Mid-Mod Desert Eclectic. :)

Since we’ve gutted the kitchen and removed some walls, we decided to also put in a coffee bar into one corner of this open-concept space. Here’s what the kitchen is looking like so far:

Kitchen Inspo by Lissa Anglin

I grew up in a home that had saltillo (or terracotta) tile, and when we walked through this house, that idea just fit and the tile is very budget-friendly for the large space we are needing to cover.

Links:

Saltillo Tile (we purchased this locally)

Black Quartz Composite Double Sink

Gold Kitchen Faucet

Gold Bar Pulls

California Dream Quartzite (purchased through Stone Crown locally)

Globe Pendant Lights

Paint Colors:

Sherwin Williams Pure White

Sherwin Williams Relentless Olive

We are planning to do shaker-style cabinets in Sherwin Williams Pure White with gold bar pulls. I liked the detail on these pulls and they are nice and heavy feeling. The island we will paint Relentless Olive- I saw this green and read the name…and I just knew we had to use it. I think it will be a great way to balance the red-orange of the floor.

Very, very excited about the black sinks we have purchased- my parents renovated and installed black sinks and I loved the durability and the fact that they will hide stains well. We are including a smaller sink in the coffee bar, and I am so excited knowing that I won’t be bleaching out coffee stains constantly.

The pendant lights were the big splurge in the kitchen, and I’m glad I went for the ones I really wanted. They are a slightly lighter gold than the rest of the fixtures I have purchased, but my mom and I have a plan to remedy that soon.

Lastly, let’s talk countertops. We made a trip out to Stone Crown here in Lubbock which is owned by our friend Scott, and he educated us on the differences between granite, quartz, and quartzite. We went in thinking we’d be doing quartz, which is a man-made product, and extremely consistent in look and durable because of that. Granite was a no-go for me- just wasn’t the look I wanted, and quartzite I had never heard of. Scott told us that essentially, quartzite is a natural product so it has the organic colors and lines I was looking for, plus it is extremely durable. Previously it has been a very expensive product, but in recent years the cost has become comparable to quartz- and Scott was able to find us a slab that was in our budget and just beautiful. The color is called “California Dream” and it is a light grey with some interesting subtle green veins, which I think will pick up the island paint color nicely.

Ok, on to the coffee bar!

Coffee Bar by Lissa Anglin

Links:

Sconces

Chandelier

This was a compromise for me. I had ooohed and aaahed over this West Elm one, but could not justify the price. In the end, I found this one and I think I actually like it better! The straight (not-angled) bars on this chandelier create a more peaceful feeling than the West Elm (more sputnik) one, and we need all the peaceful feelings we can get in our home. I’m so glad I went with the one I did.

Black Quartz Composite Sink

Gold Faucet

Ice Maker

Guys, I cannot in good conscience tell you to purchase this ice maker from Amazon, which is what I linked here. We purchased it originally on Amazon and I’m not kidding- we had to return it 3 (yes, THREE) times because there was damage to the machine. So, we ended up finding one at a store a couple of hours away and picking it up to ensure there was no shipping damage. UGH.

Refrigerator Drawers

The ice maker and fridge drawers are the most bougie purchases we have made so far, but I do believe they will make this little area one of the most popular spots in our home! With 3 kids, I’m excited to have a place to put drinks for them that they can access themselves.

I also plan to paint all of the coffee bar cabinets Relentless Olive green. Since it is a separate space from the main kitchen area, and I want it to be a bit more cozy, I am hoping the color will add interest and an intimate feeling.

Hope you enjoyed my little inspo tour! There’s a lot more on my Pinterest board if you want to follow me there!

Check out my #AnglinAbode Kitchen + Coffee Bar Pinterest Board!

demo time!

Demo on our house started just a couple of days after we closed, and if you read my previous blog post, you’ll know I was DYING TO SEE what laid beneath those two walls in the kitchen I wanted to take out.

If they were structural walls, it meant we’d need to add a big beam and pay all the dollars for it. If not, no beam and fewer dollars.

Well low and behold, we arrived shortly after closing to see this:

It was, unfortunately, load-bearing. And the wall removal also revealed that there had been at least 2 other renovations on this poor home.

The built-in shelves which many people loved when I gave a tour on Insta were the first to go (sorry!).

Once we faced the music about having to put in a giant beam (and how much that would cost), demo continued.

The front bedroom floors were ripped up to reveal plywood. This room will get new hardwoods.

The ugly brown hallway tile was removed and so were the other shelves in the hallway that will eventually become the mudroom cubbies.

One day we pulled up and this was sitting in our driveway:

Which only means one thing: beam time!

Here’s the before with all the walls/cabinetry removed:

And then in an afternoon, it was done!

You can see here that they actually had to install 2 beams, as these 2 walls were originally exterior walls of the home.

You can see that it really opened up the area!

Below is the new laundry room- former sitting area off the master. The door in the back is our master closet. Master bedroom is to the right, and we sheetrocked over another door that went into the front bedroom closet, so I can build storage there later. The mudroom cubbies will be on either side of the door (currently open).

Here is the door we closed up. There was really no reason for it to be there, and it will allow me some extra storage space on both sides.

Here is the new pantry with the old door I refinished for the entry into the pantry. I wanted something old/rustic as everything else will be new, and they are going to frame it out in the center of the pantry.

A great surprise- they discovered original hardwoods in our master bedroom! We were super excited about this but they are an inch or two lower than the other floors that lead into that room, so I’m interested to see how that works out.

This will be where the beverage bar is going. You can see they are working on the electrical here- they also had to add plumbing for the sink and ice maker. Another challenge is that I wanted base cabinets literally right over that huge AC vent. Thankfully, our cabinet maker is going to build it into the cabinets so we don’t have to relocate it and it can still be functional (and less of an eyesore).

Hope you enjoyed seeing our bare naked home! Haha! Already walls are getting put back together so stay tuned for more updates soon!

initial design sketches for the Anglin Abode

I’m excited to share my initial design sketches with you for the #anglinabode! These are the initial sketches I handed our contractor. I literally just drew them up over the listing photos and was like, “can you make this happen?!”. Haha, thankfully they have been great to work with and listened to all of my design concerns.

I mentioned in my first post about our new home that the first time we walked through it I was like

But then once I went home and had some time to really think about the layout, what I liked and hated about the house, a vision began to grow.

I started sketching and got really excited about the potential. Of course, everything was riding on the idea that we could renovate. Once I had a vision for the property, I couldn’t picture it working out for our family without the changes- and without the changes, I wasn’t interested in buying the home. So the reno was key. It had to happen.

Prepare yourselves, I’m feeling very GIFy today.

After talking it over with Shawn, we decided we’d want to re-do the kitchen and main living space, create a new laundry room, and re-do all the bathrooms. So yeah, pretty much the whole house- not to mention some exterior changes we’d like to make.

We decided to start with the kitchen, main living, and flooring and MOVE IN WITH MY PARENTS until those were done. Ya’ll, my parents might be the most patient and gracious people I know. We’ve been living with them for about a month now and I know they have earned some extra crowns in Heaven these past few weeks. :)

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Let’s walk through some of the pain points and potential solutions:

Problem: SO MANY different types of flooring. There were original hardwoods in some of the rooms, carpet in others, and laminate flooring. Having so many different flooring types is a pet peeve of mine- and I don’t like carpet, either. In our last home, we ripped up all the carpet and installed laminate which made a huge difference.

Solution: Tile and refinishing the original hardwood, putting in new hardwood. Since I’m not a fan of carpet (rugs allll the way for me! Washable, replaceable, and hard flooring lasts way longer), I decided to do tile in the main entry hallway and kitchen/main living area, along with the new laundry room. 2 of the 4 bedrooms did not have the original hardwoods that the others did, so we planned to install matching hardwoods there. Flooring consistency achieved.

Problem: Kitchen was too closed off. The kitchen in this home had undergone a renovation not too many years ago, but it just wasn’t our style, and I didn’t feel it would function very well for us the way it was. Originally it must have been a closed in room, but had been opened up a bit to create a u-shaped layout with a bar. It wasn’t bad, but I really wanted to see it with a standalone island. So, I drew up this sketch:

Solution: Knock those walls down and create a 1-wall kitchen with an island. Here, we are getting rid of the wall that connects to the main hallway, and converting the current bar area into an island. This part of my plan was the thing I was most nervous about- we wouldn’t know whether this wall was load-bearing (which it likely was) until after we purchased the home. If it was, a beam would have to be put in and could be a large budget item.

I was pretty adamant on making the walls disappear so that the overall space would be a lot more functional and inviting for us, as we’d have more seating around a bar and the flow of the kitchen would work better. As it was, there was only room for 2 people, and 1 way in and out of the space.

Here’s a more updated sketch of the kitchen- in this sketch the island is flipped around so you can see the appliances- the side that is showing will actually be facing the kitchen wall. I’ve already changed my mind on a couple of things, so there will be tweaks.

You can see the pantry here to the left of the fridge.

Problem: TINY pantry. Yall, this pantry space was wide, but only about 6 inches deep. It was laughable. There was NO way our family of 5 could contain all our snacks in there.

You can see the pantry already opened up to the closet behind it in this image.

Solution: Open up the pantry to include the closet from the front room. The pantry solution was wonderfully easy- there was a closet right behind it that opened into the front living room. We decided to close it up and use that space to make the pantry larger. Yay!

The laundry room is located through the right door in this photo.

Current laundry situation. That’s our Christmas tree, not a body bag, haha.

Problem: Laundry area was inefficient. Ya’ll, I don’t love laundry, but I especially don’t love laundry if I feel like I am in exile while doing it. The placement of the laundry room had been moved a couple of times, it seemed, as this home has been added onto (we can count at least 3 renovations this poor home has already endured!), and currently, the laundry room was off the master bedroom. It had an exterior door- why? Who knows. No storage. Behind that door is the water heater. And to get to it, you have to go through the master bedroom. Plus, it took up space. If we moved it, we could DOUBLE the size of our master bathroom. Yes, please!

Current sitting area off the master- future laundry room!

The other side of the new laundry room. This bookshelf will be made into a doorway that opens to the main hallway, so now you don’t have to go through the master to get there.

Solution: Move the laundry room. Am I crazy? Yes. Right off of the master bedroom, there was a little sitting area. Initially I imagined using it as space for a vanity or comfy chair- but then I realized it would be a perfect laundry room. If we were able to open it up to the hallway, it would be easily accessible but wouldn’t require a trip through my bedroom. And, it would be more centralized in the home. Plus, I’d be able to add storage and a sink. Having a sink in my laundry room is something I have always looked for- since I do so much painting and other creative projects, I like having a sink to wash out brushes, etc. that isn’t the same sink I do dishes in. A caveat to this is that our master closet is connected to this room, but not our master bedroom, so we’d have to also have a door to our master bedroom. I am excited about this, however, because I think it will actually make doing laundry easier since our closet is right off the laundry!

This area of our house which I am calling the main living area is actually an old patio that was enclosed. Because of that, there is no attic space here nor overhead lighting.

The old owners installed these very interesting light fixtures (you can see them over the windows and the door) that I couldn’t wait to see go. I also felt this back corner really needed something to define the space.

Problem: Lots of space with no function. I love a well-designed home, and if you don’t know by now, I care A LOT about the function of the home, as well as the visual style. So, in envisioning our main living area, I saw a lot of space without a lot of function. It was missing overhead lighting, and I wasn’t sure what the furniture configuration would look like.

Solution: Add cabinets to create storage and define the space. Because we were losing some cabinet space when we opened up the kitchen, I thought it would be fun to add some cabinetry to the back corner of this main room. You see this corner upon entering the home, and it would help designate a dining space for the room. So our “beverage bar” was born! My sketch here includes L-shaped cabinets, open shelving, outlets for coffee makers, etc. and a small sink. We also got a little bougie and included a nugget ice maker and refrigerator drawers for sodas, beer, etc. I am really excited about this little area and hope it becomes an easy entertaining space for us and our kids. I plan to put our dining table in this corner.

Problem: No mudroom/inefficient shelving. When we first toured the home, I loved the built in shelving that was at the end of the main hallway. However, I didn’t love it as much as I loved the concept of a more open kitchen. In order to open up the kitchen we had to lose the shelves on the right side. The other side of shelving had one bookcase-style shelf, and one magazine-rack style shelf. I am sure I could have come up with a creative solution for those magazine racks- but I really wanted them to be more useful.

Solution: Make them into storage/Mudroom type shelves! I designed 2 symmetrical areas on either side of the new laundry room door. They will have an enclosed cabinet up top, hooks in the middle, and cubbies for shoes in the bottom. So excited to see these come together!

Problem: Ugly fireplace area. I loved the storage, shelving, and fireplace here, just not really anything else. The fireplace insert is not one I would have chosen, nor is the mantle or cabinetry style. So, this area is going to get some cosmetic touch ups.

Solution: Lengthen the mantle and reconfigure the shelves. I love a good mid-century mantle, so I have a 10’ one planned for this space. I am hoping to adjust the middle shelving unit so that I can put a TV over the middle and still get to decorate over the fireplace.

There are lots of other little changes happening within these BIG changes, so I’m hoping to do some close-ups on them as they get completed. Tell me- what do you think of my plans? Which solution is your favorite? I can’t wait to see this home look cohesive, beautiful, and functional.

I’ll take the mid-century goodness without the housewifey-ness, please!