Renovation Reality and Kitchen Reveal!

If you have been following my blog at all, you know that on Dec. 28th we demolished our kitchen and started our remodel.  It certainly has been a process.  We tore out a closet, which ment walls and sheetrock, electrical work and water pipes had to be moved. (only one small mishap there)

Lights had to be re-done and outlets added.  Ceiling in the basement torn out for new water pipes to be added and some re-routed.  (Thank goodness it was in our storage room)

More sheet rock was installed. Then there was the taping and texturing.

(This process is sounding way easier than living through it! - What a mess!!)

and finally PAINT.  It starts to feel like we are making progress...until...

we start on the wood floor.  You see, we had to find flooring to match our old floor, which they no longer make (of course, that would be to easy) and then we had to patch it and re-finish the whole wood floor from our front door to the back, dining room and kitchen, so it would all look the same.  So that led to taping plastic up to block off all the rooms in the house so they could sand the floor all down without getting sawdust everywhere (it still ended up in every crack in the house). This is the dining room with a lovely sheet covering the drapery valance to try to keep some of the saw dust off.

The worst part of that was we were banned to the basement to live for a week.  I hesitated to show this next picture because we look a little like the people that you see on the hoarder shows, but we had to put all the food and dishes from the kitchen somewhere!!! I promise, every single thing is now put away in that room and it no longer looks like this.  So you are seeing reality.

We barely had a path to the couch so we could sit for a minute.

The day the floor was done and the plastic came down was a happy day!

The floor is so beautiful!  Totally worth all the mess and wait.

(Yep, that's my studio on the left where you see the Cotton Way sign. Part of the remodel and post for another day.)

But an even happier day was when they started to install the cabinets!!!!!

and the day they installed the granite was another good day!

and finally the plumbers came and hooked up the water and the appliances.  We had to install the backsplash and light fixtures. Clean, clean, and clean some more.  Here it is...

Before...

and after... two months later...

My new kitchen!

It was so much work to design every inch and plan out every detail,

but I am really happy with the way it turned out!  It is so light and cheery!

I am still looking for fun things to add in the windows. 

I love my hutch!

In the bottom part is a baking center with my Kitchen Aid mixer, measure cups and spoons and all the things I need to bake something yummy.

The candy jars...those are to spoil my grandchildren with and will be filled regularly.

The bunn feet... so pretty.  By the way in case anyone locally is wondering, my kitchen was built by Merrill Woodworking and they were amazing!  Thanks Kent!

I love the detail in the posts on the island,

and the posts on each side of my oven pull out for spice racks!

So there you have it!  I feel so blessed and love how new and clean everything is.  No, it doesn't make me want to cook, I don't want to get anything dirty. I just want to sit and look at it.

My family room is opposite my kitchen.  The walls got re-textured and painted and I changed some of the pictures around.  Still have more details to add but there is to much to do to go shopping.

I added pictures of all my grandchildren.

Britton, Bailey, Sydney, Anni, Aiden, Canon, Nicholas, Kai, Cal and Livvy.

We initiated the kitchen the other night with an impromptu pizza party.  Wish all the family could have been here.  I hope it will still feel like home to everyone even though the kitchen is new.  Old memories are still here. It will always be home to me!  Our Gathering Place!