A Klose to Klompeted Kitchen

It's official! We have gone from dinners like this:

pasta dishes from sugar river pizza

to this:

tacos cooking on the stove

The kitchen is completely functional and I am in love with the results! I know everyone wants to just see the pics so without further ado:

As you can see in the photos above, there is definitely some finishing touches we need to tackle, like the tv cord management, finishing the outlets, installing the baseboards, etc. But for now we are content to take our time with those.

Here are a few pics of some of the features we picked out, too:

Pull out garbage and recycling bins

Built in silverware tray....

... with a second level underneath for more storage!

Cookie sheets/cutting board dividers

A blurry shot of the lazy susan's in the corner cabinet

Spice shelves we have yet to fill...

We are also in some desperate need of some counter height stools. We spent most of Saturday evening and Sunday hunting for those ( 8 different stores in all!). I could not believe how much stools can cost. One store we went to had stools starting at $390 a piece! Crazy!! But I think we have in narrowed down to this one from world market:

They were all sold out when we were there yesterday but are supposed to be getting some in this Tues or next (cross your fingers it's this Tuesday). We are also planning on stopping at The Stool Store (very creative name I know) tomorrow on our way back to WM to hopefully pick up the above stool. The Stool Store is apparently quite special as it's closed on Sundays and has limited later hours (closes at 5pm most days...).

While out stool shopping, I finally found a piggy elephant bank I adore! I have secretly been searching for one for the past 2-3 years. We found it at Pier 1. He's such a cutie and right now is living in our pretty kitchen:

  So while there are still some things on the list before this kitchen can really be finished... it's definitely a step in the right direction!! Here are some pictures to remind you where we started...

When we bought the house

On demo day

On demo day

Although the kitchen is "kompleted" we have plenty more house projects to tackle and plan to keep you all updated on our progress. For now I'll leave you all with our "night" view of the kitchen:

Happy Monday!

Shrinking to do list

This week may mark the last week of kitchen chaos as we wrap things up. Although there's still quite a few things to check off the ol' to do list, I thought it was time we share a picture update with anyone who actually reads this thing.

Yesterday, the counter tops finally made an appearance. Mike was able to stay home and "supervise" the install so I did get picture updates throughout the morning. Let me say, I love the way they turned out! I think I may have pet them for a few minutes when I got home and saw them in person...

Sorry if the picture quality is poorer than usual. Mike forgot to take pics with the nice camera. These are from his cell phone.

Today, the tile guy came (as scheduled- yay!) and put up the backsplash. We went with a white subway tile for a pretty classic look, but had a little fun picking out an accent tile for behind the range. I immediately fell in love with the carrera marble in the tile and may have incorporated more of it, until I found out the price tag! Yikes! But it looks perfect in our little nook:

Here are a few more pics of the rest of the tile job:

Doesn't it look great?!?  I've already started putting stuff away (as of last night)- it's a fun puzzle figuring out where everything should "live."

I can't wait until plumbing and gas are completely hooked up so I can start using the kitchen again. Here's what's remaining on our agenda (and when it's supposed to be completed):

• Grout the tiles (tomorrow)
• Hang the hood (tomorrow)
• Hook up sink (Friday)
• Install faucet (Friday)
• Hook up dishwasher (Friday)
• Hook up range (Friday)
• Install toe-kick (Friday)
• Install crown molding (Friday)
• Hook up rest of electrical into box (Friday or Monday)
• Install baseboards (????)

In unrelated news, I'd been searching for a cute little garden stool to put out in our screened in porch for a table/extra seating for the past few months. As part of my birthday present, my mom contributed some $$ to help purchase one (those suckers are expensive!!) Well, I've finally found one and it got delivered today!! Yay! (not that it does much good on the screened in porch now, but it will be nice to have in 6 months when it starts to warm up again! Here she is, isn't she a beaut?

Hopefully I'll be back later this week with "finished" pics.

Let there be light

We've been trying to work on the lighting situation for awhile now. We've finally found can light covers for all of the different can lights we have and we've also found LED lights much to Mike's excitement. I can happily say I "installed" everything this morning and it's so nice to have all the lights up!

We also were finally able to get the under-cabinet lights installed. We ended up ordering Xenon lights from Amazon and were all ready to install them last weekend but they had accidentally shipped us 1 black and 1 silver light (we ordered all white) so we had to wait until this weekend to get 'er done. We did have a bit of a scare when we turned the power on and only 1 of the 3 sets worked, but it was a very simple fix and we're happy that everything worked out just fine!! Woohoo!

Notice Mike working on the island electric

Our last big project of the day was wiring the island electric. It took us about 20 minutes before we even built up the courage to cut a hole in our new cabinets, but we were able to do it without a hitch! Although it did require a trip to the depot for some last minute supplies (per our usual DIY routine).

Only 2 more days until the counter tops arrive! I'll be back later this week with more progress pics.