Wish you had taken some "Kitchen at Work" photos....

Please take some and post. You sound so joyful, we all want to share. I am SURE it is worth it. c

Great image Aliris, you write so well. I want to see that kitchen cleaned up for the party!

Joy is such a wonderful gift.
If it brings you joy, then yes it was all so worth it!

Even though our kitchen is not fully functional, I have moments of really enjoying what it is now and what it will be eventually.
The difference in space, function and aesthetics is night and day....

What a lovely gift, especially for those of us still dwelling in our "before" kitchens. The pure happiness of "we twirled, we sifted, we mixed" will be in my mind all day. Thank you!

Sounds like your kitchen is functioning beautifully aliris!

I prefer "kitchens at work" too. I posted our finished kitchen this week in a pristine, and certainly unrealistic, condition. Right now we're preparing a huge spaghetti dinner for extended family (eight adults and seven kids under 6). Our kitchen today looks much different from the finished pics and, I would submit, prettier too!

Good luck with the party!

I'll try with the photos but I'm a teensy bit leery of pasting picture shots of people on such a public site. There's much yet to do, frosting, etc. DD declared the cupcakes this morning "the best I've had - they taste just like the ones at school ... only better I guess". Honestly. You just gotta take what they give (aka shovel out I suppose). "Just like at school" indeed. Whatever.

I keep forgetting to shut off the convection when baking cakes. Seems best to turn it on before hand and maybe a burst at the end, but it dries things out if left on the whole time.

Learning curve.

We had a similar moment when our kitchen was not quite finished, but we had 2 KA mixers going with 3 and 4 people working in the kitchen at once. My guys didn't whirl and twirl, but it was a great moment and a memory well captured. Enjoy!

Aliris, you have several options to getting those pics and maintaining anonymity.
Option 1: kick everyone out of the kitchen.
Option 2: Have everyone twirl really fast and snap photos. They will be blurred ;)

Joyful news indeed!

Love the idea of twirling fast for pics, but was thinking with your word pictures, who needs photos : ).

Becky

So glad you are enjoying your new kitchen! I loved that description, too.

This is what success feels like.

You can leave out the faces...we just want the food pics and the "mess" !! Hands can also be shown and backs...you get the picture LOL.

I always leave the convection on with cakes.cookies. bread...haven't had a problem with dryness...I wonder what the difference is ? c

I'm so happy for you! It's wonderful, isn't it? Worth every penny, all the frustration, and then some.

Cj

rhythm is a dancer, it's a soul's companion. When i read aliris I feel rhythm in the air. Everywhere.

.

Thanks.

One of the girls, sitting gazing at her decorated cupcake said and I am quoting directly: "I think I am looking at my dream kitchen".

I think I like my daughter's friends! :)

Pictures to follow anon, hopefully.

Well OK, here's some effort a little post-twirling; it's the other one who twirls. This one is a little more glacial:

I think this nicely depicts "mess", but not 'Joy'. It looks like a cleanup headache to me. Oh joy. Though truthfully, it wasn't. That's some of the point of this well-designed kitchen stuff of course. It cleans itself up nicely. We'll see if that's still true in a few years.

And I don't want to miss this shot of many many fruit bowls (note the covey of cupcakes cooling in the corner):

Great pics !! Love all the fruit !! She looks very intent on her cake decorating ! c

That looks like a lot of fun. I see a princess lives in your house. Beautiful kitchen under there!

Yeah, but funny thing is that's the court wiseman-alchemist, not the Princess.

Funny about the adolescence being a second-terrible-twos. She would never have deigned to wear the former birthday-girl-crown for many years now. It was what she really, really wanted this time. go figure.

Here's some more aftermath. I love it that there's so much counter space I can dry all that stuff up there. I am constitutionally incapable, I think, of drying anything with a towel. Note the plastic bags drying on the drainer and a pile awaiting wash in the sink. Even this setup is more functional and aesthetic than my last. I would like to kick the habit altogether because I do believe dh's yowl that it wastes more energy to wash the bags than toss them (I wish I knew the actual calculations though). But at least they're not overtly in the way and disgusting this way.

Note as well, though this should take a separate thread, that the setup with the DW perpendicular to the sink is actually *great*. I was worried about it but it turns out to be better than any I've had formerly, right or left of the sink. Always, you have to twist some awkward way. This actually involves less twisting and is plenty close enough. As it happens it is also handily available from the prep sink too. I find I use both sinks almost interchageably. I regret not having more acreage in the cleanup sink:

What a great (and fun!) looking kitchen. Can I ask what you did under your sink? Is the cabinet on the left a trash pullout?
Thanks!

Hi kmmh: Yes, it's a trash pullout:

The cabinets were custom made and I think what they did, technically, was to take a 36" sink base and divide it 1/3:2/3 with a fixed panel on top. The left half pulls out and the right side are cabinets where the plumbing fits:

What's really cool, to me at least, is the schnazola-megabucks RevAShelf pullout I splurged for that is nevertheless one of my favorite purchases of all time. I still can't get over how much they have the gall to charge for this thing, though it is available online for substantially less (like -60% ... go figure).

Because it's really hard to know how these things will work out IRL, I was cautioned 6 ways to Sunday that this might not work with plumbing and fit, etc. But it did. What I've got are very smooth-gliding stainless steel buckets with handles (!) - what a concept - that work easily and are large and lay back down flat just like they're supposed to. The buckets are not huge, 10L for trash, 20L for compost behind it. And they do not fill the pullout cavity. They slide beneath a plastic shelf on which I set an inexpensive food service plastic square bucket with lid for compost. I have a larger one of these elsewhere in the kitchen at my second sink; between them both and multiple trips on heavy-use days this system is absolutely perfect. It stores, handily, beneath the sink -- I actually find myself even putting it away (to my great surprise). It's easy to grab out and toss back in, even one-handed. The glides of this particular (but not all) RAS contraption are butter-smooth so pinky-pulling is eminently possible - nice to have with dirty hands.

Here's a link to the can I have but you'll be able to find it for less money than this.

I love talking about my trash cans, which is such a clear sign of hopeless TKO. I should be embarrassed but I'm so far gone I'm not even. I'm just thrilled you asked me about it! honestly...so pathetic. :)

I love your kitchen and I love that you can show it when it is a mess. Re reusing plastic bags- I do that too. My son sent me a plastic bag drying rack. Below is a link. I really don't know if it's more PC to wash and reuse or toss. I toss the greasy or cheesy bags and rinse and dry the others.
BTW, your rain forest looks wonderful. My maple cabs go in this week and the RFG next week.

Here is a link that might be useful: plastic bag dryer

Aliris19--talking about trash cans IS a sign of hopeless TKO, but I guess so is asking about it!

Thanks for sharing, what a great idea!