Kitchen renovation

We are finally having our kitchen countertops installed after mulling over design, material, and cost for, well, a long time. We officially started the kitchen renovation back in January, with the stripping of the wallpaper. Due to delays regarding some additional cabinets (don't get me started on QuakerMaid cabinets) as well as having to make decisions regarding granite, sink, cooktop, vent, and faucet it has taken us 6 months to get to this point. Naturally, David, being an accountant, was only interested in delaying the payments, so he had NO incentive to move things along. I, of course, am paralyzed by indecision. We still haven't chosen a tile for the backsplash or the paint for the walls yet. :-P

Here are the BEFORE pictures:

This is the old border and wallpaper. I didn't mind the wallpaper so much, but I haven't loved the border since we moved in. BTW, taking down wallpaper is no fun.








This is the sink side showing the old countertops. (Cabinets are not changing).












Oven side, before picture. The orangey marble in the middle was another decision point: do we leave it (which was the original decision because we liked it and to help reduce cost)? Do we replace it? We ended up replacing it because the granite that we chose, Baltic Brown, had enough movement in it to be a little clashy with the marble. If we had gone with a plainer countertop, I think we would have left it.







The old countertops on the island. The cabinets shown are actually new, and built from scratch by a local contractor. He did a fantastic job and came in nearly $1000 under the estimate from the original cabinet company. And, more importantly, finished the cabinets in about 1/3 of the time it was going to take the big company.






Our old built in table. This was actually our biggest hurdle from the time we started talking about new countertops, probably several years ago now. Do we replace it with the same granite? Go with something different like butcher block? Tear it out altogether and just put a regular table there? I use this space a lot as counter surface, so I didn't want to remove it completely. In the end, we decided to go with the granite, and I think we will be happy we did.






Our old sink. I hate this sink. It gets scuff marks and stains at the drop of a hat. The only way to clean it well is to scrub it with steel wool and bleach the fire out of it. My mother usually does it for me (she can't stand the stains!) Unfortunately, as soon as you use it again, it looks just as bad almost immediately. We are going with stainless steel.



There is a cabinet and microwave missing from this picture. The cabinet is a large one which sits directly on the countertop. There is already discussion (from EXTENDED family) about changing this so as not to cover up the beautiful new granite. While I tend to agree with this logic, I am not emotionally prepared to deal with another derailing of this project! Fortunately, I think this is something that we can address at a later date without too much added expense and effort.








Last breakfast at the old table!












Here is the old pedestal from the table.

And the hole in the floor it left behind.









And this is the lovely new pedestal built by hand by our contractor, Bret.











This is what our kitchen looks like WITHOUT countertops--weird, eh?











And this is our living room full of all the kitchen drawers. They never show this on the home makeover shows!





Our countertops traveled from Chattanooga on this truck bed.








They cut the opening for the cooktop on site.








And here is the finished product! We are very happy with them.

















All in all, we are thrilled with the new kitchen. We still need to paint and put in a tile backsplash, and then, hopefully, sand and refinish the floor. I really don't like living through home improvement projects, although the results are usually worth the trouble. I can't imagine a major project, like an addition, though. That would be brutal!