Believe it or not, Lisa and I are just getting over our brutal weekend a couple weeks ago where we installed hardwood floors in our family room! I think my last splinter just came out. I had about a dozen of them AND I was wearing gloves! It was ridiculous. I had three bandaids on my hands for a couple days. Anyway, while we were resting up for the last two weeks, we’ve been taking our time and doing some painting and picking up some furniture. The whole reason we’re doing all of this work over about a month’s time frame is because we’re preparing for our daughter’s first birthday party. Lisa will be blogging all about that soon enough so stop by early and often!
We finished up the painting in our Family Room and Kitchen a few days ago. We still have to paint our Dining Room and finish up some trim in the living room… Oh and Lisa just added painting our powder room to the “Honey Do” list before the party… among other things.
We thought this would be a good opportunity to post about our kitchen, since we’ve never formally posted about it yet. Lisa did a couple posts about her plate walls here and here. I also just assembled our daughter’s rocking moose in our last post in our kitchen, but we never actually discussed it yet. We DID feature a couple pictures of it on our Home Build Page, but that was taken before we moved in.
So, here it is… all painted and ready for prime time.
Couple things I’ll mention. We opted for an upgrade package with the builder that included the Bordeaux stained cherry cabinets with the double wall mounted range. The double oven is sweeetttt and I barely use it. Lisa, however, frequently uses both. She roasts in one while simultaneously bakes dessert in the other. It makes holiday get together’s more efficient from her stand point. And if she’s happy, I’m happy.
Our countertop is a laminate. I know what you’re probably thinking… you don’t have granite? Well… we decided to invest our purchase dollars into some items we KNEW we wanted but didn’t want to go through the hassle of adding later. For example, we got some surround sound speakers installed into the family room ceiling. WELL worth it. We thought about maybe skipping it, but I dreaded the idea of running that speaker wire after the fact… what a PIA. Plus, we weren’t thrilled with the price that our builder wanted for granite. We had just put in granite in our first home so we know what the going rate is…. and we thought the builder’s price was a bit much. We’ve seen a few of our neighbor’s granite counters and they are definitely gorgeous, but we just decided to wait on this one.
We have a growing list of improvements we want to make to our kitchen, but we’re in no hurry. We’d like to eventually add that solid surface counter. The microwave isn’t vented to the outside, so it just recircs into the kitchen. We have visions of a stainless steel or brushed nickel range hood, not to mention a backsplash. If we get a range hood, the microwave will need to be relocated. I do want to be clear about something because I don’t want this post to come across as whiny or picky or something…. Lisa and I feel extremely grateful for all the we have. We’ve been very blessed. At the end of the day, our house… this is just stuff… what’s really important to us is our loved ones, our friends and families and our relationships with them. We’d be happy in a teepee (as long as I can get the Flyers on CSN anyway!).
Check out these photos: Can you even tell the room is painted now? This is what I like and don’t like about this paint: at times it’s very subtle. Other times it’s noticeable; nice and cozy. But you can barely tell it’s painted in these photos. To see it, you really need to show something bright white for the contrast.
In our home, on a day to day basis, the kitchen island is a catch-all. If you can’t find something, first place you check is the island. Before company comes over, I take a shovel and clean it off so it looks like a nice place to have a glass of wine and read a magazine. Just kidding about the shovel…
Lisa has all of our wine and champagne glasses in there. We generally only use two at a time and even then we rarely drink.
My favorite part is near the end of the island…
This is where we keep the cookbooks. Surprisingly, these are mostly MY cookbooks. Back in the day, I used to cook quite a bit. Then I bought my first house and I only had time to DIY… cooking got back burnered (pun). I’ve got a few Jamie Oliver books, a Bobby Flay. My current favorite is the Anthony Bourdain Les Halles Cookbook. It’s a good read, even if you’re not into actual cooking. If you’re a fan of “No Reservations,” this book is filled with his edgy and comedic personality and you’ll definitely enjoy it. It’s like “Kitchen Confidential” with recipes.
Lisa mostly cooks her family staples from memory. Anything new that she tries, she mainly gets from the food network or allrecipes.com.
So that’s our kitchen. Any changes in your kitchen that you’re planning? Do you have a solid surface that’s not granite? What are your recommendations?
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