The money room

Kitchens are by far the most expensive room in a house. It's true for ours too. Even though we have used all our existing appliances and many of our old cabinets, we still have spent more money in the kitchen than any other room we've gutted.

I love designing spaces and usually have a good 'gut feel' about how a room could function with a wall removed or something...but I've never tried to tackle the design on a kitchen before all by myself. A misstep would be expensive $$$.

This is the first kitchen I've actually planned out start to finish...and as I've mentioned before there were several people who 'know' about kitchen design who advised me against some of the choices I made. BUT the kitchen is now looking quite put together with the cabinets all in place and the countertops now on and I.am.in.love.with.it! Every choice we've made so far I'm pretty happy with. (except letting this fridge get away...still a regret)

If we had more moo-la to spend on a kitchen I would have made some different choices (cabinet style for one) but all-things-considered I'm happy. :)

Here's a peek...

The hubs and I had a slight difference of opinion on how to finish off the end of the cabinet that is on this back wall. I wanted to build a wall that matched the peninsula top, and he wanted to leave the cabinet au naturale on the end. Our compromise? To order an extra slab of countertop and extend it down to the floor. On the right is a close up of the counter. Keep in mind there are no lights in the kitchen yet, so it looks quite a bit darker than it will later. The counter is actually a subtle gray with lots of white in it. (someday I'll do a post about countertop options and how we chose what we did)
And...you might be able to see the big spaces in between the three upper cabinets in the pic on the left. That's for a special little design idea I had...so here's hoping it will work out in the end...once my husband gets some time to build it out! ;)

Since we don't have a formal pantry we splurged on the insides of some of the new cabinets and got pantry pull-outs, this fun little appliance garage, cutlery drawers, built-in cutting boards, a bread box drawer, etc. I don't think I'll ever be able to fill up this much storage! (ok...that's a lie...I probably will) :)

One of the biggest changes in the kitchen is the ease of access to the backyard. Before, you could get to this door from another one in the kitchen. It was awkward and we never used it. Once the glass door goes on here and we have a patio (someday)...I can picture how easy it will be to bbq or watch the kids right out this door!

I chose the cabinet pulls already and am really excited about them. (the ones you can see in the pictures above are the old ones that are coming off) They will be a mix of brushed nickel and glass knobs that match our doorknobs. But I still have lots more design choices to make for the backsplash and floors (I wanted to see the countertops in place before deciding on those things). Maybe I'll do another little poll on those things soon. Stay tuned...