Our Pinterest Inspired Kitchen

Pinterest Inspired Kitchen Makeover

Can you believe our new kitchen is finished? Me either! Wait til you see it – it truly is a Pinterest Inspired Kitchen.

I know that it’s been a while since I updated you on the status of the new house. It’s not that things haven’t been happening (oh lord, have they!) but that our lives are just insanely crazy right now. I don’t say that because I want to sound like “oh, look at me, I’m so important, my life is so busy… blah, blah, blah…” No, I say it because my house hasn’t been truly clean in months. Between the construction, and the two new little people in our lives, I haven’t had a cleared counter, empty laundry basket or a made bed in months.

The first few months here, we lived in a construction zone. People were in and out all day long, every single day. It was dirty and annoying, and the last thing I wanted to do was clean up all the dust and dirt, just to have a new layer of grime all over the place by the end of the night. I did it one time. It took me an entire day to wipe down every surface and vacuum, and the very next morning, the construction guys showed up with a concrete cutter and the entire house was once again a mess. Yeah, that didn’t happen again. Lesson learned. I like a clean house just like the next guy, but not enough to make myself crazy.

When the dust finally settled around here (literally, HA!), we were off to Hawaii to pick up our girls. We were honestly working up to the night before we flew out on getting their bedroom switched and the bathroom finished (again).

So, this morning, I had a chance to really clean up the kitchen (read: hide the crap from the counters) and take some photos. (you can see more of the “before” shots of the kitchen, and the rest of the house,  HERE) Do you remember what it used to look like? Let me refresh your memory…

It was super dark and depressing. These pictures were taken in the middle of the day, with all the lights on.

The above picture is taken from the same spot as the picture below. OH MY GOODNESS!!! I still can’t believe we live here!

 

As with everything to do with kitchen renovations, finishing everything took much longer than we expected. Most of the main stuff was done pretty quickly, but things like getting the ceiling painted, and the backsplash installed took a while.

There are a few things I love about this kitchen. First, I love the counter tops – Calcita quartzite. They look like marble, but hold up better to kitchen life than the real thing.

I contacted Moen early in the project and asked if they wanted to partner up with me for the kitchen items. Thank goodness they agreed, because the faucet is spectacular. They were kind enough to send their Etch faucet to me, along with the pot filler (below) and the sink. I love how substantial the faucet is, but still beautiful. I didn’t want to go with anything too industrial, or anything too “frilly”. It works like a dream – the handheld sprayer retracts easily and neatly once I’m done with it. I like that the button to change it to the spray option is a simple rocker switch, not covered with a rubber cover, so there is no chance of the cover ripping, or the button getting stuck. It happened to the handheld that was originally in our last house, before we replaced it, and we had to turn the water off and then on again for the spray to return to normal.

In our last house, we had a double sink, which was okay… but I wanted a nice deep, huge sink to wash the big pots and pans that we use on a regular basis. I love that this one has sloped sides, as I found with the last sink which had 90 degree angles, that the water didn’t drain as easily, sort of pooling in the corners. No problems like that with this sink – no crevices for food to hide in either! I know it doesn’t sound like it would be a big deal, but it was a pain to keep clean.

I got quite a few ideas off Pinterest for the following features (I wrote about the ideas in this post) which is why I call it our Pinterest Inspired kitchen. Ideas like the hidden receptacles in the island.

We put one on each side of the island. Both are equipped with USB ports for easy phone or tablet charging. The cabinet makers made the spaces pretty deep, which allows for storage of the cords, so we don’t have to remove them when we are done charging. I love that – no misplaced cords!

I’ve seen smaller versions of a pull out for spices, but we went with one that would be able to hold almost all of our spices.  We had all our spices in an upper cabinet before, which was a pain to find things in and was a waste of valuable space. This one makes it easy to find anything fast. I like that the shelves are tall too, so that things like vinegar, cooking oil and sprays can fit.

I have always wanted a pot filler… they just seem like such a decadent feature to have, don’t they? When they were re-running the water line for the fridge, since we moved it to the back wall, I had them add the water line for the pot filler. Moen also sent me the pot filler – from their Traditional line – I love it!!

And seriously, how beautiful is that backsplash?! Home Depot online. I think it’s the perfect shade of gray, and not that expensive as backsplashes go.

The Viking range/oven was a Craigslist find. We had to drive three hours to pick it up, but it was worth every mile/penny/minute we spent getting it! New models cost upwards of $11,000! I scoured Craigslist for weeks and jumped on this one as soon as it popped up. I love that it’s a double oven – can’t wait to put both of them to work for Thanksgiving!

I loved the idea of this under the counter microwave more than the reality of it. Since we removed most of the upper cabinets in our kitchen (except what’s on the wall) we had to figure out a way to fit in a microwave. We had seen this kind of microwave in a house we went to look at when we were house hunting. The only one we could find was this one from Sharp. I don’t like that it doesn’t have a turntable inside, so we have to rotate the food ourselves throughout cooking time. I know it’s not a big deal, but once you get used to a turntable in your microwave, it’s hard to go back. I do love that it saved me from using up valuable wall space, and it’s pretty powerful, so in the end it’s all good.

One other thing we are seriously lacking in this kitchen set up is pantry space. We had two big pullout pantries at the old house, so I wanted one here. This one is great, but we still don’t have nearly enough space. We will be converting the bar area next to the breakfast table to a walk in pantry in the future, but for now, this is what we are cramming everything into.

I can’t tell you how much I love the herringbone wood tile floors. They run throughout the whole house, and they are probably my favorite update we’ve made to the house. We did the same pattern in our last house, only putting them on a 90 degree angle instead of “w’s”. You can see them, and our last kitchen remodel, in this post.

And finally, I think what I love about this kitchen the most is that there is plenty of room for friends, family and our furry children to hang out without stepping on each other. We left a lot of space between the island and the wall cabinets, and on the other side of the island, we still have a lot of space behind the bar stools.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll be back soon with some more room updates… just as soon as I “clean” them up!

Eliesa

P.S. We went with “custom” cabinets for this kitchen, and I have to tell you that I think our Ikea kitchen from the last house is a much better buy. They are sturdier, have stronger drawers, rails, soft close mechanisms, etc, etc, etc.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to have the cabinets guys come out to fix the drawers, pull outs and other things. In fact, we are waiting for them to come fix the top pullout in the pantry, which has pulled out of the side of the cabinet and is hanging on for dear life. And they mismeasured the space/cabinets, so we have many issues with the way cabinets open and close because of it. Some doors don’t open all the way because there isn’t enough clearance, some drawers don’t slide as they should, and the soft close hardware they use is terrible. The cabinets cost three times the cost of our Ikea kitchen – and is half the number of cabinets. Not even close to the quality of Ikea. If I could do it all over again, I’d go with Ikea any day of the week. Just my two cents, no one is asking me to say this. I just don’t want anyone to think that going custom will necessarily get you a better kitchen.