If you’re here for the first time, welcome! I’m Jana Bek, an Ann Arbor based interior designer with an emerging lifestyle line of home décor, textiles, & lighting. I have a love for bright colors, bold prints, and designing spaces & home décor that help transport you to your dream destination.

I’m so excited to be participating in my fifth season of One Room Challenge & and a huge thanks to Linda of Calling it Home for organizing!

Here’s a look at my most recent past ORC’s (and you can tour all of them in links below):

Home Office / Breakfast Nook & Great Room/ Atlanta Apartment / Living Room

This round, I’m taking on our kitchen, it currently has a dark 90s dated look, that's completely out of sync with the airy spaces that surround it.

I’ve yet to mention, that one of my husband’s and my favorite things to do is cook together so this renovation is long overdue! I found this photo when looking for interesting “before” photos, it makes me so happy, we have fun:

Now for the major progress we’ve had in the past week!

First, we are about a third of the way done installing our gorgeous Fireclay backsplash and it’s looking incredible, so much lighter & brighter!

A side-by-side to illustrate:

The other game-changer was honing the shiny granite counters, we are thrilled that we pulled the trigger to refresh the granite!

When we started this project, we thought that with all of the other updates, we could live with the sheen. However, we knew it would not look quite right, and that it was ultimately necessary for a ‘finished’ transformation.

I had become enamored with the idea of getting them honed on-site when I stumbled upon Amanda Hessar’s kitchen renovation a few months back and learned it was possible. Here's a look at here own killer kitchen transformation, be sure to check out the full reveal here.

Luckily, my research led me to a highly recommended master fabricator, Brian Keller, with enough experience and skill to be up for the task.

There is little information out there so I hope my learnings may be helpful. Many craftsman are not comfortable doing this on-site; this was actually Brian’s first time honing on location. The process entails a series of wet sanding with various grades of diamond pads; slowly grating off the sheen while ensuring the surface remains level. From the start, Brian admitted he was extremely detail oriented (sometimes to a fault) and I do not know how one could be successful in this task without that quality. The prep work alone – protecting our lower cabinets and portion of newly tiled walls – took great time & care. The price initially sounded expensive ($1,500 for our 60 sq. feet of counter) but it’s very time consuming. Brian spent 16-17 hours on the process and with the amount of tools required, we learned that the price is reasonable, and it proved to be an awesome resolution for our dated counters! When you think about the comparison for replacing, it’s money well spent.

Before:

a look at the process and the matte "after" (which really doesn't show how beautiful it looks):

That’s really it for this week! I am excited to delve into the fun details (new lighting, stools, paint picks) next Thursday and hope you’ll tune in for our progress updates!

In the interim, you can find my scheming on Instagram & pinterest.

Be sure to follow along with the Wednesday group below with my fellow linking participants!