An (Almost) Finished Kitchen

Hi!  It's been awhile.  How are things?  How were the holidays?

We took things easy around her during the holidays, which is part of the reason I haven't updated the blog recently.  Between finals and a baby shower and then Christmas and New Years, we decided to take a few weeks off from the house reno and just relax.  We all needed a break.  Landon and I worked on unpacking and sorting through the piles of boxes hidden in the basement and making a huge pile of things to sell at a yard sale in the spring--so if you want any of the stuff we don't want any more, start saving your pennies now.

We did take the chance to finish up a few projects that had been lagging.  I finally got all my trim (at least in the main areas) spackled and the paint touched up.  And we finally got our soft close drawer glides installed, although we're still waiting on the last of our upper cabinets to get swapped out (they didn't send us the correct ones--we paid for plywood sides but got pressboard instead).  With the kitchen finally (mostly) finished, I thought I'd share a few pictures.

First, just a refresher on what the kitchen looked like before:

This was the entirety of the kitchen.  All four feet of counter space and one drawer.

And the lovely plant window.  

The entire room was about 10 x 10.  It had two doorways, one into the dining room and one into the family room, but there was no direct entry from the main hallway in to the kitchen.  There was very little cabinet space and even less counter space.  It was closed off and just kind of awful (although the counter tops were relatively new solid surface).

And now it looks like this:

The stove is actually almost exactly where it was (we moved it just a foot or two to the left), but we added more counter space on either side.

The sink moved to under the big plant window and we took down a few
walls so we could add in an island.  We also moved the refrigerator to the back wall.

Our LED under cabinet light strips.
 They came in a huge roll and you just cut them to size.

We also added a huge pantry (which is much more full now).
 It lives just to the left of the refrigerator.

 While I love everything about my new kitchen, I'll have to say that my favorite part (and the part that we use the most) is the island.  We love it.  I do homework there.  We eat there.  I do all my cooking there.  When I hosted a baby shower all the food was there and most everyone stood around it.  It's the best part of the new kitchen aside from the fact that I can now walk straight down the hallway and into the kitchen.

My pretty pendant lights.  

Obviously this picture was taken awhile ago.
We do not still have the Christmas tree up--it's February for pete's sake! But it does show how different things are from where we started.  

So, what's left to do in the kitchen then?  Well, here's the short list.

• Trim around the plant window.
• Install a tile backspalsh.
• Finish the toe kick on the island (there is none currently)
• Get the final upper cabinet replaced.
• Get the last bit of under cabinet lighting installed.
• Install the last bit of pantry door hardware.

There's still plenty to do in the rest of the house, so don't think we're almost done.  But at least the kitchen is nearing the finish line.