Hi friends! Welcome to Week 3 of our Modern French Kitchen Renovation with the One Room Challenge where we are discussing flooring, walls and our beautiful new lights from Z-Lite!
If this is your first week, make sure you catch up by checking out Weeks 1 and 2 where I share all the ugly BEFORE pictures as well as detail our inspiration for this space and demolition! It’s a MASSIVE undertaking but we are SO excited to see this space turn into our dream kitchen!
This last week was a big one in the space as we had all of the floors done and finally put up all the walls.
When it came to the flooring on the main level of our home, we had FIVE different kinds of flooring throughout. While having different flooring in the laundry room and powder room seems perfectly acceptable to me, having two different types of hardwood and vinyl tiles mixed together just didn’t look good.
We thought we could have saved some of the hardwood and done a match – then sanded and restain it all to match, but our contractor ended up finding us an amazing deal for six inch wide, engineered white oak hardwood from Biyork in the colour “Shoreline Grey” for almost the same price. So we decided to just remove all of the wood and have the flooring match everywhere on that main level. We also hired professionals to install – and after watching them for those two days, I’m glad we did. That is seriously back-breaking and time consuming work!
Once the floors were complete, it was time to finish up the walls. Once the walls went up, it was a game changer – you can finally see how the whole space will look in terms of size and layout. We are still in the final stages of mudding and sanding but hopefully that will be done today and then it’s onto paint and installing EVERYTHING!
We have been very fortunate to have a number of sponsors come on board to help us complete this kitchen and this week’s sponsor is Z-Lite, a Canadian family-owned lighting company.
I started talking to Cody from Z-Lite before the pandemic hit when we were still updating our front hallway last Fall. But once Covid hit and forced most business to shutdown for a time, we decided to put the partnership on hold.
Fast forward to our kitchen renovation and I reached back out to Cody to see if we wanted to work together and it was an enthusiastic ‘YES!’
Z-Lite is a Canadian based, family-owned lighting company that’s been around since 1987. They now have operations in both Canada and the US, with a large array of quality interior and exterior lighting to suit any style. They have everything from modern to classic to transitional lighting in a wide array of finishes.
For our kitchen space, we needed three different kinds of lights: pendants for over the island, a chandelier for over the kitchen table and sconces for the oven wall. Keeping in mind that we were going with a Modern French feeling in this space, I was thrilled to find lots of brass and black options that I felt would really help bring this theme to life.
Here’s the lights we chose:
These pendants were actually the first inspiration pieces for this space. I saw similar ones on Pinterest when I was looking up French kitchens and I knew I had to have them. So I was thrilled with Z-Lite had exactly the ones I wanted. The matte black paired with the factory bronze in the globe shape absolutely reminds me of many bistros we visited while in Paris! This pendant comes in five different finishes – antique nickel, brushed nickel, chrome, matte black and chrome, matte black and factory bronze – and two different sizes (we got the bigger ones).
While it’s technically listed as an island/billiard light, I find myself calling it the kitchen chandelier! This gorgeous, olde brass, 12 candle-inspired light is absolutely stunning and will go beautifully above our kitchen table.
Similar to the Peyton pendant, the Barclay light comes in multiple finishes – matte black and olde brass, but also comes in a variety of shapes and sizes – round, square and rectangle all with varying sizes. But one of the aspects of this piece that I particularly loved is that there was the option to have black candle sleeves. Because we have black in the pendants, I thought this would be a great option to tie the lights together.
Last but certainly not least are the Harper Wall Sconces in rubbed brass. I knew from the beginning of this design that I wanted to have open shelves near the oven with wall sconces flanking either side. So when I saw these sconces, I absolutely fell in love. The brass gives it that old world charm with the clear glass shade giving it a modern feeling.
Similarly to the other lights, the Harper sconces come in four different finishes – brushed nickel, matte black, polished nickel and rubbed brass.
Z-Lite products are available at a variety of different retailers across Canada and the US. You can click “Dealers” on their website and type in your address to find a store near you!
We are so impressed already with the quality of these Z-Lites, I can’t wait to properly install them as I know they will make such a huge statement in our kitchen!
Well friends, that’s it for Week 3’s update on our kitchen! Thank you for following along and make sure to come back next week for more!
Love & Blessings,
Christine
Note: This post was sponsored by Z-Lite where I have received product and/or compensation in exchange for my honest review. As always, the thoughts and opinions expressed are 100% my own.
