Kitchen Before and After

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Well the kitchen is finally clean enough for pictures. The kitchen was sort of completed before the holidays '08. I say sort of because the kitchen folks have recently come by to replace a door and reinforce the drawers with better hinges. When we thought we were rid of them they yet again made a mistake on the measurements...so we're still waiting for fix a few doors. Geesh.

Anyway, here are the before, during and after pictures of our kitchen remodel. We are so very happy with the way it turned out. It all came together. I saw the marble slab in a showroom and instantly knew it was the one. I would never have thought of selecting green marble, but I fell in love with it at first sight.

I forgot how awful the kitchen was before. The cabinets were the worst kind of wood (style and treatment) ever!!! The floors were impossible to keep clean. The kitchen had a drop ceiling for no reason at all. And everything was dark, depressing and small.

We blew open every wall in the kitchen and dining room. It now is an open floor plan. We added tons of windows and made the existing ones larger. We opened up the ceiling to reveal the vaulted ceiling. We added beams. We ripped up the floor in both the kitchen and dining room to match the hardwood everywhere else. All plumbing and gas lines were moved to new locations. Nothing in the entire kitchen is original. I found this beautiful limestone range hood made by Francois and Co. The store didn't have the exact model I was looking for but they were remodeling their showroom and needed to get rid of their floor models. We purchased this one from them at a much lower cost. I love it. While in Vegas looking at prospective commercial real estate locations, Ed found the pendants at a Baccarat store. He did good. He was also in charge of pretty much the entire remodel...from construction to picking out appliances and fixtures. We both worked on the design and layout. I love my kitchen. It inspires me to cook it in almost everyday. If only I could keep it clean. Surprisingly, the kitchen storage is not as big as I'd like. I'm still missing a box of kitchen tools and I've already run out of space. Not a lot of cabinet storage with the open design and all the darn appliances.

Granted, I love it today, but I don't recommend trying to design a kitchen and then live in a remodel while pregnant. There were many times I wanted to check into a hotel...without Ed.