Overall, I love this kitchen. It's proving very family friendly and I haven't had any issues with the primed shiplap as a backsplash. The marble island top DOES etch, but we're closing our eyes and hoping to make it to patinaland sooner than later. With 18 years of school fundraisers ahead of me, I'm certain we'll get there. But there's NOTHING like making pastries on it and I'm going to try my hand at fudge and candies soon!

Our FAVORITE spot, where we spend 70% of our time, is firmly planted on the BOOs block. Chop chop chop. Walnut end-grain... can't say enough. A quick sudsy soapy wipe after each prep and a once a month oiling and it's beautiful.

So here are the pics of our very lived in by a young family of five new kitchen!

I am sure you will get questions about the lights over the island, which are fantastic. My only question is, can you please post photos when the floor is strewn with children?

Congratulations, and thanks for posting. hbk

Congratulations on a stunning kitchen. (I'm running out of adjectives.)

I just pinned your kitchen to Pinterest!

The lights, the lights! I waited through two houses to finally get those lights, and RH stopped making them! We ended up buying them on ebay. They're called "Royal Master Sealight Pendants" and they came in 6" and 9". These are the 9".

I'll post details as soon as kiddos nap in simulcast. Might be next year :) Just kidding!

P.S. I'm a Bama girl myself!

Love it!

Okay, so the swings crankin' the 3-month-old, and the 20-month-old is miraculously still sleeping, so here goes:

First, this kitchen was the product of lurking on GW for the better part of six months. We didn't walk step by step with everyone, but I feel as though I did. You guys taught me more about CFIs, surface durability and sink preferences than I could have ever gleaned from 50 professional KDs. I cannot say enough about this community. Mmmmmwahhhh.

Second: Though it's certainly the nicest kitchen I've ever lived with, my husband and I are huge bargain hunters. We sourced almost every item ourselves, and most everything came from ebay, appliances included.

The deets:
Just three weeks before we had our 2nd child, we bought this house from the bank. A builder had gone bankrupt mid-construction, and my husband became an overnight GC. Much of the work was piecing together what had already been done, what still needed to be done, and what needed to be redone. The floors, which turned out to be teak, had sat unfinished and unconditioned for two years in the humidity, so we were reluctant to move any of the rough ins for gas, water, electric, etc for fear of messing with the floors that seemed otherwise salvagable. We ended up staining them Jacobean and using a matte finish.

The cabinets were custom, using SW Pearly White. I'm so sorry, I have no idea what the finish was.

The perimeter counters are 2cm Caesarstone (Raven? I can't remember!) and are mitered to 6cm to match the crazy heavy 6cm block of Alabama Marble on the island. We also installed a 4" Walnut, End-Grain boos block. Love love love that. Every time my husband and I comment about the kitchen, we mention that that was the best money spent!

The range is a Thermador 48" dual-fuel and we love it. Very easy to clean. I will complain that in the smaller oven, the backside of the oven runs a tad hotter than the front, but I just do minor baking in that oven. If I'm doing dozens of cookies or roasting a pile of veggies, I use the standard oven.

The vent hood is a 52" by Modern-Aire, purchased out of a showroom on Ebay. It's either a 1200 or 1600 cfm blower, it's been so long, I can't remember.

The fridge/freezer is two Thermador 30" Freedom Columns. I love the way they look, but I wish they were a bit deeper. I do miss my old Sub Zero in the storage capacity department.

The dual/single wall ovens are GE and we use them for pizzas, small batches of cookies, but they really shine when we have the 20+ gang over for Thanksgiving and Christmas, our mothers aren't competing over casserole space!

The sink is a Franke 39" stainless apron front, again purchased from Ebay. The faucet is a Brizo Venuto Touch... ebay.

The potfiller... I sincerely can't remember, but it wasn't incredibly expensive and it works just fine.

The polished nickel hardware is from two compaines. The square knobs are from Atlas. The pulls are Amerock.

I hate my dishwasher. Big ole fat Thermador/Bosch fail there. It has no heating element and I rewash dishes after every load.

The pendants are Restoration Hardware's Royal Master Sealight 9". The chandelier over the kitchen table is by Ballard Design.

I think that's all y'all!

Thank you again to everyone who posts here.

Yours, however, is definitely one of those few! Teak floors - I'm envious, teak is one of our favorite woods and I'd love to see it come back into fashion again. The walnut chopping block and cabinet trim - brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

If I were buying your house, I'd keep the kitchen just as it is....even tho I'm not a fan of inset cabs or marble, everything you've done is just so perfect together (the shiplap backsplash is INSPIRED), I wouldn't think of changing a single detail.

Terrific job, and your DH is to be congratulated, too. It's rough being a GC, and it's wonderful how you two updated a classic old home and revitalized it for today's lifestyle.

I too miss the pretty kitchen image of the little one feeding the "baby". It could have been a Goldfish commercial. (Don't you feel a little bad when the new baby comes and you have to stop calling the other one "the baby". I had my last two 54 weeks apart and it seemed the older one got robbed of "babyhood'!)

I also love the idea for hanging kids artwork "framed". Can you explain how the clips are done?

and if i could bother you with a question: how deep is your drawer with the slide out shelf (9th picture)? i'm working on my inserts and am wondering if my shallow drawers are deep enough.
thank you!

Add me to the others who are drooling over those pendant lights! Too bad they stopped making them.

I like your built-in cutting board. Cooking in this kitchen would definitely be a great pleasure.

You did a great job.

That is one amazing kitchen, alabamamommy!

Adding to Favorites... :-)

Thanks for posting!

I've said before how much I love the perimeter counters, and the heft of your exceptionally gorgeous island countertops. I still do!!

Very few kitchens truly hit that sweet spot of simplicity, elegance, and function.

Just goes to show what an empowered homeowner can do (with a little help from friends of course).

This was a real treat. THANK YOU for sharing!!!

Still crazy about this kitchen after all these years. (Cue Simon & Garfunkel).
It is just stunning.

The Caesarstone is Pebble (kitchen stalker). I obsessed over my perimeter countertop choice and your kitchen photos were my Caesarstone inspiration. I ended up doing Danby marble and I just opened this post and had regret. Sigh.

So glad for you & your family that you're enjoying it. I have 3 under 5 and that "thwack thwack thwack" of the swing is familiar!

Congrats,
Katie

Question about your kitchen table.......
What size is it?
Where did you purchase it?

It has been difficult to find a round table just the right size to accommodate my family of six.
Thanks!

I saw the other thread too but I personally believe in timeless kitchens, which (to me) means a good "marriage" of form and function.

Say what you want, but I would never tire of certain art pieces (Raphael or Kandinsky, anyone?). I think of a well-designed kitchen as a work of art. :-)

So, Alabamamommy, if you ever get tired of your kitchen, you can give it to me! I live not too far from you and can come get it the same day. (Wink)

Kateskouros - That drawerfront is 4 3/4", the drawer itself is 3" deep.

Kayds - you are absolutely correct - the perimeter counters are Pebble Caesarstone. I could not remember, so thank you for being on it!

chrismo4 - We had the same problem. Round tables were either 54" or 72". Very few 60ish that hit the right design notes for us. It's 62" wide, and it's from Zentique. The top is reclaimed, unfinished elm, which does show the greasy whatnots of little hands, but it's not offensive. We ordered locally, but I saw it first on Laylagrace.com Can't say enough about the heft of the chairs - love them.

Lake Girl and Carp123 - I'm not a designer, just an obsessive researcher. Honestly, we knew we wanted a kitchen that felt like a commercial kitchen, yet homey. I bend a bit towards industrial and my husband towards traditional. One thing that forced our hand was that all of the rough ins were already in place when we purchased the home and we couldn't dig up the floors so we just worked from what we were given.

In terms of design timeline, it was about 4 months from the time we purchased the house until we placed the cabinet order. At the time, Lowes had a very attractive offer on Kraftmaid cabinets. I believe it was 25% off any order over $25k plus an additional $8,000 rebate. So we sat with a Lowes designer and roughed out our thoughts to get a ballpark. We then took that to the custom cabinet designer to see if they could match their quote - which they did and upgraded to insets as well.

As far as learning about the high end items, some I just picked up on over the years, some I learned about reading through garden web... but honestly the process went something like this. Search ebay for 48" ranges, see what comes back. Google the model numbers for retail prices. Search garden web for reviews. Start again with built-in-refrigerators. What cinched the Thermador range for me was seeing one in person at a showroom. Luckily we found an ebay seller that was within driving distance who had a number of items that we were interested in, as well as the range, they made a deal, and my husband rented a truck. (The same truck that carried home the marble for our bathroom from the quarry :)

As far as the process of narrowing things down visually, I just studied every home magazine, kitchen book and online gallery I could get my eyes on. After a while, I realized I was having the same gut reaction to white kitchens, though I felt like the classic white kitchens were a bit too formal for our personalities, though we weren't really quite country or tuscan either. I kept collecting photos of white kitchens that had something unique about them... a contrast here, a detail there, the shiplap siding, etc. I guess once we'd studied enough, we'd weigh our finds online against our visual criterias. Somewhere between cost, availability and design is where everything landed. That and a nightly check of gardenweb :)

I hope I answered all of the questions! I can't say enough how much this community helped along the way.

But I will reiterate... I love your kitchen!

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately of reno vs new build. And your kitchen and my old kitchen hammer home the point that if you are doing a reno (especially when sourcing everything yourself) you can take your time, gather the things you need at great bargain prices. There is no real pressure to hurry up and "decide". I think that everybody who has gone through this really appreciates the story that their space tells. With our new build, I feel that I have to rush all of my decisions. I don't have time to "stare" at my space and think what would look best. Don't you just love that when people come in and they ask about something you can tell them how/why you picked that particular thing? I keep thinking of the new homeowners in our old house. The kitchen doesn't have a story any more.

I think that your kitchen is surely going in the GW Hall of Fame. Congratulations on such a great space to enjoy with your family.

Bee

susied3 - We didn't order the Boos from ebay - I don't remember seeing the size we needed. I do know that we ordered from whoever offered the best price + shipping :)

The gallery wall was an idea I got from Pinterest. My husband was bummed that the giant stainless fridge doors weren't magnetic, while I was secretly relieved! It's the one space in the kitchen that's never cluttered. I picked up open backed frames at Michael's (on sale, of course) and tacked the back side of the binder clips to the back side of the frame, and then mounted the frames. The clips allow us to rotate out the art until I can file it. The door is something we picked up at a local shop already done. What a fun way to showcase your grandchildrens' art!

The spice pullouts fronts are 5 3/4", the pullouts themselves are 5".

The total island is 10'9"x4'2". With the wide legs, we had to find narrow counter stools, though I wouldn't have gone any wider because it's a reach for my short arms to wipe the counter now.

Beekeeper I know exactly what you mean about the decision fatigue of building. My husband and I have both commented that we "eased into building" because the walls were in place. But it is really hard to enjoy the process when there are so many decisions to make. i.e. Doorknobs... something that would be fun to research on it's own. Pile it in with 600 other design decisions like closet lights, stair rails, light switches, outlets, and stinking drain hardware and it's exhausting. Godspeed on your new home!!!

You did good. :)

Not sure if you have answered this yet, but what color are your walls?

Congrats on all of your research. Man, it paid off in spades!

Also, your placement of the dish drawer next to your dishwasher is genius. I am stealing that idea too! :)

Just curious what you store in the baskets next to the fridge?

Also do you find that the fridge is too far away from the sink? or are you happy with its placement?

Can you share where you found yours? It looks like it may be too thick for us, I think we're going to need a 5 or 6 cm piece of butcher block, and I'm a little flumoxed on where to start looking for this piece.

Not sure if you're still around or just off enjoying your beautiful new kitchen, but I'd love more info if you have it!

Thanks!

Gorgeous kitchen