What's Cooking

I currently have a lightly snoring newborn on my lap, so it seems as good a time as any to check in with an update on our kitchen renovation. I hesitate to call this a final reveal since there are still a few things we'd like to do (like add an island, hang window treatments, put shelves in the pantry, and eventually install a tile back splash), but it's pretty darn close! 

We were able to set it up just three days before I went into labor, so it hasn't been cooked in very much (by me, at least - my mom and mother-in-law have both put it to good use!), but I still marvel at how bright and functional and pretty it is now. 

The issues with the original kitchen are almost too long to name. The lay-out was horrible - only one wall of cabinets, and the counters were the same depth as the upper cabinets, making it nearly impossible to use them as a work surface. The stack pipe for the house went through the middle of the one wall of cabinets and counter space, which was ugly and obviously impractical. And the cabinets themselves were a disgusting brown, peeling linoleum. They were always kind of greasy, no matter how much I wiped them down. 

To plan the kitchen, we played around with the Ikea kitchen design software quite a bit to get a sense of different lay-outs. We tried all kinds of different placements for the appliances and cabinets over a few months time period. It's not the most user-friendly program, but it's so nice to have a visual of the space to review.

Once we settled on the basic lay-out we liked, we set up an appointment with a Home Depot kitchen designer, who helped us create a mock-up with Martha Stewart Wainscott cabinets in picket fence. We looked into laminate counter tops (they've come a long way!), but for a kitchen our size, the price difference between that and granite was only a few hundred dollars, so we ordered granite from Home Depot as well in azul platino. It took a little over a month for the cabinets to arrive after we ordered them, and during that time, our contractor demoed the kitchen and floor, replaced the old window, opened up the wall between the dining room and kitchen, and added new plaster to the walls and ceilings. 

For the appliances, I found our fridge and microwave on Craigslist, and we ordered the stove and dishwasher from Best Buy when a good sale was going on. I painted it Silver Mist by Benjamin Moore, which I wasn't sure about at first, but now absolutely adore. We picked up the Liberty knobs and pulls at Home Depot.

We had originally ordered custom trim to go over the cabinets, but in our funky old house, the ceiling is far from level, and our contractor thought that the chunky trim would only draw attention to that fact. We returned it, and he added plain wood trim that goes to the ceiling, which I painted in Martha Stewart picket fence (the color match for the cabinets). It's not 100 percent perfect, but I like the look of it much better than if it were to stop before reaching the ceiling.

Just for fun, here's a shot of the first dinner Peter made the night our appliances got installed - linguine with clam sauce! (I had already started eating clams when I thought to snap a picture, ha!). My only request was that it be something we couldn't possibly have made in a crock pot or microwave :)