The new kitchen

Yay! Our renovations are finally finished! They were officially started with the bathroom over a year ago, and were finished on the weekend. The entire house got overhauled - all new windows, new interior doors, new paint in every room, new trim throughout, new flooring in the bathroom and kitchen, the new bathroom and - the centerpiece - the new kitchen.

The "after" pictures were taken at night, so the paint colors seem darker than they are, especially since we haven't installed a light in the dining room yet. Also, we have yet to decorate and put up drapes, but basically you'll get the idea.

We are extremely happy with how everything turned out!

Before - The kitchen was like a hallway, it was long and narrow.

Before - There were two access points to the kitchen, one from the dining area and one from the hallway (right side of the picture - you can see the crib in Ronan's room). Since we would rather have had a larger bathroom (the far wall of the kitchen is shared with the bathroom), we moved the wall into the kitchen two feet and got rid of the hallway access.

Before - The cabinetry was original to the house - very well built, but ugly and creaky.

After - We installed a U-shaped kitchen which, even though we made the kitchen smaller by moving the wall into the kitchen, we actually have more countertop space and cabinets than we did in the old kitchen. Notice my new stainless steel appliances!

The wall between the living room and kitchen was made into a half wall, totally opening up the area. The design of the plate rack above the sink necessitated the removal of the kitchen window, but there is still the big dining room window on the back wall, as well as six pot lights - there is no shortage of light in that kitchen!