Gas At Last

After a couple of years work, the kitchen renovation is almost complete.

At left is a picture of the kitchen when we first looked at this home. It was very sad and in need of tender loving care.

The cabinetry was in terrible shape which meant, ripping out the old and bringing in the new.

I love dark cabinetry, but because we have very dark hardwood floors, I decided to go with white cabinets and accent with a dark island.

Here is the kitchen after we finished installing the cabinetry.

In this picture, the island was not yet installed.

While waiting to install the new island, I gave the old one a facelift by painting the cabinets, removing the old counter top and replacing with a new counter top I created with tumbled marble tiles.

As well, I kept my old appliances .... waiting patiently until I could get the slide in gas range I had in mind for my new kitchen.

I wanted to install leaded glass in my two glass front cabinets, but the cost was prohibitive and we were after all on a tight budget, so I made these myself with plain glass and lead stripping. I may yet get my leaded windows by taking a stained glass course and making them myself.

We removed the dishwasher from beside the range and increased the size of the island to accommodate a new built in dishwasher.

This is my (almost) complete new kitchen. I just love it and spend quite a lot of time in here cooking & baking.

There are just a couple of small projects ... crown moulding, light rail under the cabinet run on top, a little trim here and there, finish the back splash on the wall just behind and above the stove top (you can just see the two missing pieces in the next picture) and have a piece of granite cut to install behind the stove ... it doesn't quite reach the wall, so I need to fill that gap with about 3 1/2" of granite.

In this picture you can see, that I decided to keep my white refrigerator. Because we built the cabinets around it, I like the cohesiveness of all white rather than interrupting the wall of cabinetry with a stainless steel refrigerator.

This was a project I was not sure we could do ourselves, but do it ourselves we did and I think it came out great.

To save on costs, we used stock cabinetry for the white but splurged on the island and the granite counter tops. I designed and made the toile draperies and as well installed the backsplash myself which also saved considerable $'s.

Kitchen renovations can break the bank, but we did this whole kitchen for approximately $12,000.00 which included my new dual fuel range and the granite which together took up nearly 1/2 of our budget.

I just had to hang a chandelier over the island.

Doesn't every girl's kitchen need a little sparkle????