Our kitchen, so far

So the kitchen of this house was remodeled two years ago.  The finishes weren't exactly what I would choose, but they were nice and we probably would have kept them, but they just didn't take advantage of the space.  

 Since there were no upper cabinets and only a narrow cabinet next to the fridge, there was very little storage space.  In fact, from our tours of the house, it looked like the previous owners kept all of their food in the basement pantry.  My friend Kersten commented that the family had seven kids so they could just run one of them down there when they needed something, but that wasn't going to work for me.

 Since we had one month before we moved into the house, we started renovations hoping they would be done before we moved in (ummm, not even close).

 Behind the fridge, there was a hall closet eating up kitchen space so you previously walked in from the entryway to walk around this to enter the kitchen.

 Luckily, the wall was not structural so we ripped it out and were left with this teeny broom closet

 and all of this kitchen space! (pardon the pictures, it was cloudy when I took them, and I forgot to edit them before I uploaded them)

 There is still work to be done obviously.  I'm having trouble choosing a backsplash and that hole in the island will someday be home to a microwave drawer.

 I think one of my favorite things about the kitchen are the pull-out pantry cabinets on the sides of the fridge and freezer.  Oh, and the giant fridge and freezer.  They are not fancy built-ins, just separate units squashed together to look like it, and we opted to skip the trim kit to make them look really built-in, but Larry and I still ooh and ahhh each time we open them and see all of that space.

 It's hard to get perspective in these pictures because everything is a little bit oversized, but I also love this big sink that we got from our friend/contractor Geoff Tice.

 And we FINALLY got the range hood back up this week so it's feeling like a little less of a construction zone. The guy who came to install it has come four times and always has a reason that he can't do it.  This time, he didn't have anyone with him to help lift it so he said he'd have to come back in a week, but I promised him I was up to the task.  Imagine me standing on the stove, balancing the hood on my head and shoulder.  It was not pretty, but it was worth it not to wait another week.

And after an extra coat of finish on the floor, we were finally able to bring in our table and chairs.  That table seems so puny in there, but we were already planning to buy a new one.  Larry and I bought the table and chairs in a set for $120 at Shopko when we got married and it's in bad shape, but we were trying to hold on until we were settled somewhere.

 Oh, and remember this laundry room/computer closet off of the kitchen?

 It now looks like this.

 Larry would like you all to know that he picked out that faucet.

 It's actually the only things he's picked out for the house, but don't you think he did a good job?