Tour Tuesday: Fisher Kitchen

February 27, 2018

Welcome to this weeks Tour Tuesday! Today we are spending some time at my friend Becky’s home (specifically her kitchen) in Fairfield. I met Becky about four years ago at the school our kids were attending together. We bonded over international adoption (her son Judah was born in Rwanda), DIY and all things home decor. Becky is one of those people that I could sit and talk to for 42 hours and never get bored and or run out of things to say. She is inspiring and awesome and I have a lot of respect for her and her family. Becky and her sister Rachel are the owners and talent behind Wurzbach Fisher, a photography studio specializing in portrait work. Their photographs are pieces of art; I LOVE what they do. You can check out their business website here and Instagram feed here.

Becky’s house is FULL of inspiration and great ideas and color and history! I forced myself to just focus on the kitchen for today’s tour; we will be returning for more of her house later. Trust me, you will gain tons of inspiration from the kitchen alone. Shall we get started?!

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Me: “Hi Becky! Thanks for letting me crash your gorgeous kitchen today. So, how did you come to live in this home and when was it built? Tell us a little bit about your neighborhood.”

Becky: “We found this home after searching for months on end. This was the worst house in the best neighborhood that we could afford, so we jumped on it; it was a total drug house and nearly every single thing has been redone. It was built in 1979. Our neighborhood is seasoned. There are lots of retiree’s and very quiet with some younger families moving in every year. We really liked that it was so close to the school as well.”

Me: “What is the feeling you were going for with your furnishing/decor in the kitchen area?”

Becky: ” We were going for a farmhouse craftsman feel. I love the look of shaker cabinets and I also love the look of mixing whites with wood tones and black. I wanted people to feel comfortable in my kitchen and I wanted it to feel inviting.”

Me: “Well, I would say mission accomplished with that one! So, did you decorate all at once or in little bits over time?”

Becky: “We spent a lot of time doing it bit by bit. When we first moved in, we allotted $1000 to the kitchen. We didn’t have a ton of room for new things, but we did have a ton of room for creativity! Nothing could be salvaged in the kitchen except the dishwasher and oven/stove top. We started out with the cheapest cabinets you can get at home depot, chalk painted them, and spent the rest of the money on a butcher block counter top, open shelves that my husband made from scrap wood, wainscoting & very basic tile flooring. The sink was a free find. We also turned the washer and dryer into our garage, and converted that space into a pantry. I traded some old baskets at John’s Hauling for my pantry door and added the letters to the front.

Eventually we added better lighting, a newer faucet, and replaced the butcher block for quartz. The next phase was repainting the base cabinets, and then buying new shaker style doors at Fast Cabinet Doors. After that my husband built our upper cabinets, added more lighting, put in subway tile for the back splash, and we purchased more doors. Voila!”

Me: “Do you have any further plan or changes for your interior? What is on your reasonable wish list?”

Becky: “We want to upgrade our lighting to all LED lights. Aside from a few areas of trim that need to be touched up, and wood floors laid in the bedrooms, the house is done! On my wish list is a wide-plank herringbone table and bench, handmade by my husband.”

Me: “You are fortunate that Nick is so handy! What is your favorite thing about this kitchen/dining area?”

Becky: “For sure my range hood. We worked really hard to make that what it is, and were pretty meticulous about it, which sometimes, isn’t necessarily like us.

The angles on the shiplap created some road blocks but we figured them out. What I loved most about it is that I got to work with my husband on the design. Like always, he asks for my ideas on Pinterest, then I sketch out what I like, then he refines it, then we shop for it. We get creative and think through all options together. He does that main building of the projects, and I do the finish work. We make a good team!”

Me: “Looking back on your home so far, what decor projects have been the most fun or rewarding to accomplish and which ones have driven you crazy?”

Becky: “Seeing ANY project completed is the most rewarding for us! Sitting back after a long day of work looking at the fruits of our labor is my favorite. Learning to cut angles have driven us absolutely insane. Building our stairs was totally crazy, but learning to cut and install crown molding has been the MOST challenging project ever. Drop-whatever-you’re-doing-and-walk-away-from-the-crown-immediately, kind of crazy. But, now we know how to do it!”

Me: “This is seriously why I have NEVER attempted crown molding. I am pretty sure I would lose my mind. Where are some of your favorite sources for home decor and in particular for this kitchen project?”

Becky: “I love walking through Cost Plus World Market but I also love walking around John’s Hauling and other picking yards. I used to watch this show called ‘Picker Sisters’ where they would go to different picking yards like John’s around the country, and then build furniture from their finds. That resonated with me. I really love making something new from something old, and so for me it really comes down to what is needed and functional, and then I want it to look cute in my house & not cost me my first born’s kidney.”

“I love challenging myself to be more creative and I absolutely love bringing in our history. For example, I found an old Hoosier at a thrift store in town, and I fell in love with it! I envisioned making it brand new and putting an old scale I found in my Grandpa’s barn on it, guessing that my Grandma had used it in her kitchen. I also envisioned what an old kitchen would look like and knew there would be canisters for flour & sugar, etc. My dear friend Tami made me a super market sign, and we made a wood back to it with some old scrap in the garage.”

“Four years later and I have the project complete! I also found a problem with dinner time/cooking, and helping my kids with their homework. I have 3 kids and really need them to be separate during homework time, or WWIII might break out. I wanted at least one of my kids closer to me if they needed help, so that I could still cook and assist at the same time. We had some left over butcher block from our last house, and we had about as much space between the edge of the counter and the slider where we could put it. So off we went to John’s, and found an old patina’d pipe for $1. We put a little stopper on the bottom, and bought a stool to go under it. The perfect solution to a couple of problems.”

“Most of my sources come from finding a problem that needs a solution (like the time we knew we needed a way to keep our 9 year old daughter from jumping over the back of the couch), and then scouring pinterest for ideas. In the case of the jumping 9 year old, I found that I wanted a shallow sofa table that would deter said jumper, as well as display my Great-Grandmother’s hand made quilts. We found the wood at John’s for $10 and added pipe. The perfect solution! I absolutely love the way all of these projects look in my home.”

Thanks Becky for letting us hang out in your kitchen today! I love what Becky said about how most of her sources “come from finding a problem that needs a solution”. I feel like this describes a lot of my decorating decision making as well. I always appreciate when someone’s house does not look like a catalogue, but is instead currated over time and full of warmth and history. How about you? Do your decorating ideas come from fixing a problem or out of boredom or a need for change…? Tell me about it in the comments 🙂