The One Thing That Changed My Kitchen

I have been at war with my kitchen since we moved in over 5 years ago. I rearrange stuff on the counters and think to myself, "Yo, I totally won this fight. You don't look awful anymore. I winnnnn"! And then the kitchen sits smirking all night because it knows that tomorrow I'll shuffle in bleary-eyed and slump my shoulders in defeat.

It's come a long way for the kitchen with the wallpaper from Mordor, but the magical white paint is not quite magical enough for this one. Here's a reminder of where we started...

And then we moved on to this(old pictures but I don't have recent ones because it's been my least favorite room)...

The wallpapers gone, it's been repainted. we've put in new flooring(twice!), I've arranged and rearranged. Still this room has baffled me. It feels cluttered even when it's clean and organized. That is, it did until I did this one thing.

I hung a platter over the range.

That's it.

Suddenly, the cabinets weren't so orange and the countertop didn't look so cluttered. I have no science explanation behind this one, except that I'm sure it has something to do with a focal point. Since this is the first wall you see when you walk in, I should have thought to create a focal point here years ago, especially since there isn't any backsplash.

I rearranged this kitchen over and over for years after I removed all that wallpaper. I groaned every day over those orange cabinets. In the end, all it took to make this room bearable was one large, white platter.