The Big Kitchen Remodel {and reading the end of the book before the beginning}

Here is to reading the end of the book before the beginning...

Preface: We have tutorials coming on most of this kitchen {as we did about 85% of it ourselves in some way shape or form}.  However, I keep posting "sneak peeks" due to no other way about it and I can't wait to share with everyone anyway.  So without further ado...

Get ready for a LOT of pictures!

We bought the house because of this which proved to be a huge undertaking.

Are you ready? Really ready? 

So there you have it... the kitchen as it is now {as opposed to buying a house "as is" like we were just crazy enough to do}.  Several months of blood, sweat and tears, and by golly - it is cookin'!

Here are some tour photos!

Granite

Blue pearl granite

We chose Blue Pearl as our granite.  We fell in love with it when looking for granite, even though it wasn't exactly what we thought we wanted {funny how that works huh?}.  It turns out, we designed the kitchen as if it were made for this granite {in our opinions} and we didn't even know it.  Due to an unfortunate circumstance {or fortunate for us}, it turns out that it thought it was made for us too! As you can tell in other pictures, it isn't always as "blue" as in this picture, but this one is especially cool to us because oftentimes, you cannot catch the "pearl" in a picture - and this one actually did!

{Side note: if you are in our area, Stonemen Granite is fantastic.  They helped us pick out, cut, and install our granite.  They were the finishing touch on our kitchen.  Give them a shout if you are looking for granite!}

Beverage Station

Our Beverage Station

If you are redoing your kitchen and you have a "nook" like this {or anything NEAR like this}, we highly recommend a beverage station.  The design came to us after mulling over many different options that just didn't seem to fit.  It has been a ton of fun using this baby {total use count YTD: 1 trillion} and we cannot wait to finish decorating it.

{Side notes: a) we plan on doing a beverage station tour entirely separately soon including some hidden gems in her and 2) all of our cabinets were built and modeled by The Roth Company in Muskogee, OK.  Once again, if you are in our area, we absolutely loved the finished product and couldn't have finished it without them!}

The Island

Our {really friggin big} Island

We are so excited to share this area of our kitchen with you in depth some day.  {It also has some hidden gems that we can't wait to show off}.  We took pride in the fact that in the entire kitchen, there is about a 2.5 inch x 5 inch square that is not utilized and absolutely every other inch is used in some way.  WE LOVE THAT.  Our island seats 6, is decorated for fall here {despite our love for OSU, we have ventured away from an entirely orange kitchen, and no, we don't keep pumpkins out year-round}.  The final measurement of the island is somewhere near 10 ft by 5 ft.

No John, you still cannot come play games that involve a ping-pong ball on it.

The "What? You have a couch in your kitchen?" Sitting Area

Kitchen Sitting and Entertaining Area as decorated for Fall

Yes, we have a couch in our kitchen*.  No, we are not done decorating it yet.  Yes, it currently works.  We also have a bench and 6 seats {see our friggin big island above} and room for more if needed.  Need we direct you back to the "reason we bought this place" post from the very beginning?

We have a separate dining room so we didn't feel like we needed another table in conjunction with the island and dining room.  So we wanted a place where people would gather and not underneath our feet while we were cooking.  This is what we came up with and we think it rivals the beverage station in terms of usefulness.  Andrew thinks it is great for watching football.  I think it is great for reading morning devotionals and drinking coffee.  The important part: we both have a use for it.

*For those of you with small children worried about mac and cheese on the couch/chairs/rug {and/or spaghetti sauce} - we aren't.  Please bring your kids for dinner, we will let them help cook, and enjoy themselves.  That is what Windex, Clorox Wipes, and Protection Plans are for.  Yes, we were warned that someday, something will spill on the furniture.  We decided to not really care.

Finer Details

Details of our DIY Remodeled Kitchen

Details we love: {clockwise from top}

Lighting! We have more lights than the Eiffel Tower {at 336}.  Ok, so not technically unless you count each individual light on the under-cabinet lighting, the fridge interior, oven interior, etc.  And then we still may only get to about 200 {but someone would need to count to verify!}.  However, we have a lot of light.  Somewhere around 12 recessed can lights, 5 pendants, 1 5-bulb chandelier, LED string under-cabinet lights, and even in one of these detail pictures a flashlight {that isn't on but made the cut in the picture apparently - oops!}.  Some of the lights are dimmable {Andrew's request} and there are lots of large lights to use {Kelcie's request} and lots of re-wiring by our cousin Aaron and his trusty sidekick Andrew.

Touch faucet and Personal Touches were a necessity.  The touch faucet is definitely worth the extra $100 or so {or less if you buy on E-bay like us}.  However, here is your warning: you will look like an idiot at your family and friends' houses getting mad at the faucet for not turning on when you touch it.  Seriously.
We also added personal touches throughout the kitchen {there are several on the beverage station}.  We wanted it to be comfortable and be ours despite being pretty {once again, our opinion}.  Little things help us with that like our metal "Eaton".

Extra Seating and Open Glasses Have you ever been to someone's house and not wanted to ask for a glass but they didn't offer one and they are busy and you get caught in this awful catch-22 that I feel anxiety over just thinking typing about?  Well, we like to leave some accessible and within the line of sight {there are plenty in the open shelving on the beverage station too}.  We also leave this bench for additional seating and dog holding or purse placing.  It has worked out really well.

Drawers are everywhere. This is not only appealing to the eye but it is useful for the vertically challenged {i.e. Kelcie}.  More on what we use all of these drawers for at some point, but these pictures will have to do for now.  Oh, and lazy susans are always a great idea in the corner.


Improvements to Make

This wouldn't be a DIY Blog about our remodel and cooking adventures if we didn't include what we still would like to improve:

• Get a piece of our remaining granite for the built in bookshelf in the sitting area.  It was the only piece of anything we actually kept from the original kitchen {remember, the walls were even altered because of the wood panels!}
• Hide the TV cords - let's just say it didn't make the immediate priority list {like a lot of other things around here}
• You can't really notice in these pictures {until we tell you in 3... 2... } but we don't have the hardware on the shutters or windows.  We have them finished.  But we just don't have them installed.  Whoops!
• Backsplash. Eventually.  We can't seem to find what we think fits.
• Open shelving above the beverage station.  I know what I want but, like a lot of other projects around here, my grand plans are going to take Andrew to figure out how to execute them.  It could be kind of tricky because there is a pocket door inside that wall which means the studs don't run the same way as a normal wall.  The other problem? We were originally going to put our wine rack there but due to the pendant light, I wasn't going to be able to reach the wine we had on it.  BIG PROBLEM.  So now it is all a matter of making my lofty dreams match the realities.{Pretty much like anything in this Google search would work}
• Clipboards next to the beverage station.  I like to change out my artwork more than Oklahoma changes it's seasons.  This will help me. 

How about more before and after shall we?