Well, well, well, who do we have here?! It's been awhile... okay, almost a year. I apologize that you've had to endure my last post- "Our Springtime Farmhouse Front Porch" not only all last spring, but all summer, fall and winter, too! Leave it to me to wait until that last year-old post is actually seasonally appropriate again to write a new post : )

So! Hi! What up, blog world! Most of you probably keep up with me on Instagram, but if not, all is well in the Ten June world. We're still loving our farmhouse beyond belief and have been here for just over a year now! HDawg (5.5) and Little Lady June (4) are doing wonderful and we've got baby number three in the oven! Our third baby is a little girl and at 38 weeks pregnant now, I feel like she'll be here before we know it.

I get so, so many questions (almost daily!) about our kitchen vent hood, so I thought it was high time I share some details on it. And I promised in my kitchen tour post that I would share more information if you were interested... ye ask, ye shall receive! This is not a DIY post- neither David nor I built the vent hood, our amazing carpenter sub-contractor did. Those folks are so talented- they also did all of our farmhouse trim work, our built-in breakfast nook and LLJ's reading bed, among other things. So we didn't build this vent hood, but I did design the hood based on some inspiration and some ideas floating around in my noggin, so I wanted to share what I could.

In terms of the design of the hood, I knew I wanted something modern, streamlined and simple. I had the carpenters bump out the hood so it stood out a bit more from the cabinets (ie. not flush to the cabinets), but I also wanted it to blend in like it was part of the cabinet and not a completely separate piece.

Over our Verona oven (which, by the way, we love!) we installed the Faber Inca vent hood insert. First off, we really like this vent hood. It's powerful (our oven is not on an exterior wall, so the exhaust has to travel far) but not too loud. And I actually love the lighting options on the vent hood, as well- a great ambient light to leave on at night and a stronger task light while we're cooking. So once the vent hood insert was installed, we had the carpenters simply build a shiplap box around the insert. It spans from cabinet to cabinet to create that seamless look. And we took the vent hood all the way to the ceiling (like our cabinets) with the same trim work as our cabinets. That really created that unified look I wanted! For those of you wondering, the shiplap on the hood is painted SW Alabaster, just like almost every other part of my house (inside and out!).

Here's a close up view of the Faber insert.

To spice up the custom vent hood a bit, I had the carpenters add a piece of stain-grade wood trim around the bottom edge of the hood. I love that little detail! I stained the wood with a light coating of Minwax Early American, just like our keeping room vaulted beams in the adjacent room.

What's fun is that our kitchen and living room are open concept, so the stove sits almost directly across the large open space from our living room fireplace. Why is that fun? Well, because we cased the living room fireplace in the same pretty white shiplap as the vent hood! So it's a nice, unified look.

Needless to say, the kitchen is the absolute hub of our home and oftentimes where we find ourselves gathered as a family, with or without guests. It's been such a fun place to have such a special piece and we are in awe of our awesome carpenters who built the vent hood for us! 

If I'm missing answers to any questions you may have about the custom vent hood, feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll address!

Guys. It's spring. And we are living outside. Want to see where we are spending so much time on our front porch?! This springtime post is sponsored by my friends at Wayfair. Come on over, kick off your shoes, grab a lemonade and let's take a tour of our front porch and how it's looking these days.

On the far end of the porch, we've got a little side door that we call a "friends entrance" or an informal entrance (ie. not the big, double front door). The space in front of this door has been empty since we moved in, but it was begging for some chairs and a space to take off our muddy boots as we go in and out of the house. Enter these fun adirondack chairs and this mint green outdoor side table. I had big plans to stain these chairs a medium toned brown (or paint them black) but then I set them up on the porch and kind of loved how the natural vibe matched the wood tones of our porch. So I added a couple of new pillows and this adorable little mint table (which sort of matches our haint blue porch ceiling!) and voila. The perfect place to hang before you head into the friends entrance (which enters into our mudroom).

On the front side of the porch, we added these new black rocking chairs. We loooooove them. That's an understatement, actually. We looooooooooooooooooove ythem. They really make all my little farmhouse front porch dreams come true, don't you think?!

Over on the other side porch (yes, this big ol' porch wraps around half the house!), we set up a porch swing bed! Isn't it amazing?! Some of our nearest and dearest friends shared this amazing piece with us as they didn't have a home for it. Such a sweet gesture and something we remember every time we swing. We've already spent countless hours relaxing out here during the day or watching the stars at night. It's so lovely!

So there you have it- the current state of our springtime farmhouse front porch. We recently taught our kids that "front porch sittin" is a thing. On the way home from school the other day, HDawg asked me if we could go home and "front porch sit". Yes, son, I think that sounds like a great idea : )

For more information on our front porch (all sources, paint colors, etc) check out this post.