We started our project back in April of last year. It was supposed to be a fairly simple project of knocking down a couple of walls to open our 40 year old kitchen up to the rest of the house. But as ususal, it ended up a much larger project. We replaced the flooring in most of the first floor, built a new fireplace mantel and built in bookshelves and basically updated the entire first floor of the house. It ended up costing way more than we expected and took much longer than we had ever imagined, but the result is amazing.
Sometimes I forget how bad it used to be. I was just looking at our before pictures and I was shocked at the dramatic change in our house in the past year. We now actually use our kitchen every day. I have cooked more in the past month than I did in 3 years with the old kitchen. We only had 1 working burner on the old cooktop and the 40 year old oven had a hole in it that made it impossible to keep a consistent temperature in the oven. It was a nightmare to cook in there. My new kitchen is not much bigger than the old one, but the design works so much better.
It was a difficult process. Our KD/Cabinet Guy was very difficult to work with, but I'm beginning to recover from my battles with him. I still sometimes fight the urge to drive my car through the front of their showroom, but I no longer wake up in the middle of the night angry at the KD. For anyone in the middle of their project dealing with similar problems, I can assure you, once the project is done you will eventually recover and begin to forget how painful it was.
Throughout our project I got great advice from this forum and I learned a lot. I only wish I had found this site earlier in our project. Many thanks to everyone who consulted on my various crises--the hood that wasn't centered over the range, the hardware that didn't match and my many fights with my evil KD. I'm posting a couple of pictures of the old kitchen and the finished kitchen to show the scope of the transformation. I'm also posting the link to albums of the before and after.
Thanks to everyone for your help!









And the horrible before pictures:

What a difference from old to new. Beautiful job.

But honestly - don't you miss all your refrigerator magnets? I know I'm going to miss mine. I always felt they gave a kitchen a lot of character... Don't really go with today's more elegant styles of kitchen though. Sigh.

Wow is all I can say.

Even if he was a pain, he must have been exceptionally talented. Your kitchen looks like something right out of a magazine. Like every tiny detail was inserted in the exact perfection and proportion required to create the most exquisite end product of beauty. It's like nothing is off or unbalanced. Not one bit is too much, and nothing is lacking. It's just an exact and complete mix of perfection.

Laurie

While we did have what I refer to as a KD--he was really just the salesman for our local kitchen showroom. He wasn't particularly helpful in the design and I had to fight him to get a lot of the details you see in the final design. It took about 6 weeks of very long and painful meetings with him to get the design finalized. I came up with a lot of my design ideas from this forum and some of it was dictated by the limitations of our space--for example the mantel range hood over the peninsula. Because it was visible from the kitchen and the dining room, I didn't want a traditional wood hood to hang there and we really needed some additional upper cabinet space. I loved the look of a mantel hood and I hated that I couldn't have one because it wasn't against a wall. That's when I cooked up the idea of hanging two mantel hoods back-to-back with glass cabinets on the sides. The cabinet guy and I nearly killed each other trying to get the design to look the way I saw it in my head--but it finally turned out right. For the final month or so of the project I also brought in an interior designer to oversee the painters and trim carpenters and handle the final battles with the KD (I was over him by that point)--but by that stage the design was pretty much done. Thankfully she approved of all of my wacky design ideas because it was too late to change anything.

In my hurry to post the pictures this afternoon I failed to address any of the relevant details so here is everything I can remember:

Cabinets--Kraftmaid Marquette door with Vanilla Bean Glaze
Counters--Typhoon Bordeaux Granite
Floors--Brazilian Koa/Tigerwood
Sink--Rohl Allia Fireclay
Sink Faucet--Blanco Bridge Faucet
Pot Filler--Whitehaus Vintage
Range--GE Cafe
Refrigerator--Electrolux Wave Touch Cabinet Depth
Dishwasher--LG (from the old kitchen)
Hardware--Edwardian collection (manufacturer--Top Knobs, maybe)
Sink Light--Pottery Barn Track Light
Garden Room Chandelier--Visual Comfort Large Country Bell
Dining Room Chandelier--Quorum
Furniture (Dining Room & Garden Room)--Ballard Designs
Paint Colors--Georgian Green (Garden room)
Yosemite Sand (Kitchen/dining/living room)
Confederate red (foyer)

That's about all I can remember. Its hard to believe that I labored for weeks over decisions like the pendant lighting but I can't remember now who made them or what they were called. These little details are now just part of the whole kitchen and I don't think about them as separate pieces anymore. I must admit I'm really enjoying my new kitchen and I focus less and less on the little flaws that I know didn't turn out exactly as I had planned. Maybe I will enjoy it even more now that it has the GW seal of approval!

Thanks again everyone,
Crystie

Happy cooking!
Eliz

charlikin--You may be able to see in some of the pictures that our refrigerator magnets and my daughter's art projects have been moved to our french doors in the dining room (not my idea). We temporarily hung my daughter's school reward there one day and now she loves to see her stuff hanging there so much that I can't get away with taking it down!

msrose--Here's a picture of the front of the couch. We got it when we first moved into the house 4 years ago, but no one ever used our living room until we finished the remodel. The old kitchen was bad, but the living room wasn't much better. It was dark and closed in and very boring.

Your pre-remodel lino looks a lot like ours.

Scary stuff...

From BathTime

I love the way you opened up your kitchen to the rest of the house. Such a dramatic difference! Your hardwood floors are gorgeous. They have such lovely graining and the color shows off all of your furniture and cabinetry perfectly. The Typhoon Bordeaux granite picks up the glaze in your vanilla bean cabs and ties the cabs to your floor beautifully. Great choice. Love your lighting fixtures. You really show how you can use different finishes in the same room and have it look so complementary.

I'd love to know where you purchased the beautiful red chair and the gold sofa in your living room. You have a great decorating sense and I hope you enjoy your "new" home and kitchen for many years. Thanks for sharing.

What a wonderful transformation - Excellent taste, use of materials and function - Just a really stunning kitchen -
Very inviting - so, what time is Sunday brunch served?

Enjoy that lovely new space

I am having issues with deciding if mine will be big enough.
I noticed you have a ledge beind yours. Could you tell me the dimensions of that as well.

Thank you!

oh ALSO The Glass Lighting fixture over the kitchen table ??
What kind and how much if you don't mind my asking...

I must admit, I was obsessed with finding the right light fixture for the garden/sunroom. I knew what I wanted in there and I searched for weeks to find something that would work. I found a picture in a magazine of a custom lantern fixture that I fell in love with and I kept looking for something similar. I nearly had a fixture custom made to hang there, but the $2,000 estimate made me finally come to my senses. There has to be some limit to what I will pay to turn an inspiration picture into reality and $2K was it! I finally found the Visual Comfort Large Country Bell Jar Pendant--it was close enough to my inspiration picture, and the $700 price tag was at least somewhat more reasonable. I also got the matching small country bell jar pendant for the foyer.

We must have some long-lost gene in common! When I finally get around to posting my before and afters you'll understand what I mean. Even DH who I just showed your pics to, said we had the exact same floor (we didn't- but we do now- thought I recognized Tigerwood!). but we did have horrible old white wood cabinets- green walls (I picked it, but seemed dated after 12 years)- and divided space. We are also planning on redoing our fireplace wall- have removed the old brick (and it is being slowly gotten rid of piece by piece in our weekly garbage pick up) and the wood stove. We have an oak mantle in place temporarily, if the money holds out want to do something very similar to what you've done!

I wanted white cabinets and had picked out Typhoon Bordeaux though we went with DH's choice of stained Maple and Butterfly Blue, I still feel we must have very similar tastes! So I have to say love your choices!!! And DH does too! :>)

It looks like there are actually only two recessed cans in the main part of your kitchen. Is that so? I am agonizing over having as few cans as possible in this old house. What are the dimensions of your kitchen and how many cans, if you don't mind?

I like your two-light over the sink fixture as well as all your pendants!

chinchette: The Ballard chairs are fantastic. They are very comfortable and thankfully easy to clean. We were planning to get the matching slip covers to try to protect the chairs, but so far they are holding up really well--even with a messy 4 year old doing art projects on them!

Is that your daughter dancing around? too cute. congrats on a fantastic finish - enjoy

I love your FP as well!

Nice to hear about Ballard, too - I was considering them for a couple of things for our house decor.

Do you like your fridge?

May I ask which granite you used?
I am in the process of a kitchen Reno and trying to figure
out what Grantie to do with white countertops and stainless
appliances.

I could really use some help.
I love your counters, It has movement. I am so fearful of
movement because my kitchen is small. But your granite
has some movement without being overpowering. I LOVE IT.
I will have to post
pic when I figure it all out.