Let there be light!

I've been looking for a new dining room chandelier, pendants for over the island as well as bathroom lighting. The leading contenders are from Hubbardton Forge out of Vermont. The glass shades on the chandelier and pendant would be the same.

The Snowball Effect

The kitchen design we chose required that the bearing wall between the kitchen and dining room be removed. This then required that we extend the hardwood floors that are in the kitchen/family room into the dining room (which I wanted to do anyway). We have a half bath in the area, so decided to remodel that in conjunction with the kitchen. The vanity will have a similar style cabinet as the kitchen. I have also wanted a vessel sink for a while, so this is the place. Love the look. The kitchen designer suggested wainscotting in the bathroom also. Love that look too.

On Valentine's Day, after we went to selected the granite for the kitchen, we went over to the fabricator and found that they were open. Our initial thought was to find a remnant there for the vanity. When we walked in, they have several vessel sinks on dispay. One of them immediately caught our eye. It's a beautiful blue glass square-ish sink.





If we go with this, I'm now thinking that we'll change the existing tile flooring in the bathroom. The snowball is getting larger.

Valentine's Day Granite Trip

We visited the granite wholesaler our kitchen designer recommended to pick out 3 slabs of granite for the kitchen. How overwhelming this place was! We checked in at the front desk when we arrived and were given a clipboard to record the numbers and names of the pieces we were interested in. Then we spent two hours walking up and down aisles of beautful granite slabs. The first piece we came across was the most amazing thing I had ever seen...probably why they had it right by the door you entered into the warehouse. Wouldn't I love to do something with this.



This picture does not do it justice. It's almost too beautiful to cut up. Back to reality...Back and forth, up and down we went recording numbers. We picked out seven different pieces to look over again (and again). One particular piece, called Black Beauty, really caught my eye. I took a picture of it on my iPhone and emailed it off to our kitchen designer for her opinion. By the time I reached her by phone to discuss it, we decided that, while beautiful (and extremely expensive), it did not go with the look we were after.




From the six remaining contenders, we narrowed it down to two, Bross Blue and Blue in the Night.



While I really like the movement in the Bross Blue, we felt that it was too busy (and blue) for what we wanted. Thus, Blue in the Night was the winner!

The Design

We went through numerous reiterations of the design before settling on this one. The major change to our existing layout is the elimination of the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. This allows for an 8 foot island on the diagonal, which will seat 4. In addition to this seating, we will have a raised peninsula that we plan to have our wireless laptop at. Our printer will be housed in the end cabinet of the peninsula along with a file drawer and my husband's catch-all drawer.





At the other end of the kitchen is our family room. Opposite the family room is our living room. This is the view of the kitchen from the family room.



This is looking at the wall with the sink. Currently, we have a double casement window over the sink. In the new kitchen, the windows will be moved to the right and be replaced with three single casement windows yet to be determined. I would like to have a window grid to match the glass that will be in the cabinets on either side of the cooktop.

Kitchen Cabinets

We knew that we wanted shaker style natural cherry cabinets. Much of our furniture is this type.

We decided on Plain & Fancy inset cabinets. This picture is the door/drawer style.




This is the finish for all except the island. It's natural cherry with a low sheen.



















For the island, we wanted something different, so went with White Antique Distressed on cherry. The actual color is more creamy than this.



















Hardware...These are for the drawers.







And these are for the doors.

It's New Year's Day...Let's look at appliances!

We had met with two of the three kitchen designers...the third (and the one we ultimately choose) was coming to our house on January 2nd. I was getting itchy to look at kitchen appliances, so we went to the local applicance store (not a big box store) where we had previously purchased our appliances for the house back 15 years ago. I had been looking during the fall and was leaning toward Electrolux. When we had done the design in the spring 2008, I had actually ordered appliances through Sears. At that time, we were getting mostly GE Cafe.

Since I wanted to change the footprint of the kitchen, we were now looking at cooktops and double ovens. Many people were trying to talk me out of a double oven, and ultimately, I was convienced. Instead we went with a single wall oven, a combo microwave/convection oven, and a warming drawer. Since I wanted a counter-depth refrigerator, I thought it would be a good idea (and yes, a luxury) to have an undercounter beverage refrigerator. All the appliances, with the exception of the beverage refrig, are Electrolux Icon.

The Existing Kitchen

From the day we moved in 15 years ago, I have wanted to redo the kitchen. This was new construction and we were on a tight budget, so my dream kitchen was just that at the time. Over the years we added a shaker pegboard under the top cabinets as well as a wooden backsplash. I had originally intended to tile the backsplash, but the cabinets were installed so poorly, it would have looked awful, as nothing is level.

I love the pegs under the cabinets and will have these in my new kitchen also.

The Back Story

We've been talking about remodeling our kitchen for over a year. In the spring of 2008, we actually had worked with a kitchen designer and came up with a plan to replace the existing oak cabinets and formica countertops. The plan then was to keep the existing kitchen footprint. Due to finances, we put everything on hold. Over the summer and fall, I had the great idea to change the footprint and really make this my dream kitchen. So here we are in February 2009 ready to jump in with both feet.

Over the holidays we met with three different kitchen designers. I presented them with my wish list and talked about my ideas and then let them do their thing. Two of the three designers basically presented designs that were my ideas put on paper. Nothing that blew me out of the water. The third designer thought way outside the box. What she presented was my dream kitchen.