Maydl, I love your colorful tile floor in your kitchen. I also love the way you incorporated the 10" LCD Tony TV (I would love one of these one day just in my home since the Bravia's picture is incredible) TV in the kitchen making it look like it belongs there and is beautiful also. The kitchen looks cozy and is really a wonderful transformation.

Hope the links helps others view your kitchen by just clicking it instead of copying and pasting your link to their websites. I learned that to put the link in, one has to be in the preview mode so that the optional Link URL comes up. I wish GardenWeb would fix this.

Thanks for Sharing.

P.S. Now that I have the link to click, I want to add that I love your Super Susan and wish I had that than the cheap lazy Susan I have. I love the pull out drawers. I love the sun room with that same beautiful tile. I also adore your backsplash tiles. Thanks for all the great ideas for the future and for giving me "eye candy" viewing your beautiful kitchen.

Maydl, your kitchen is absolutely beautiful. I love all that natural light and the high ceilings. The wood complements it so well. So many great details - but what really caught my eye was the great switch plates!

Congratulations and happy cooking.

Eliz

Love the combination of your different stones in both the counters and the floor and backsplash. The warm colors are so inviting and comfortable. Makes you want to come over for a cup of coffee and sit down and watch the food network on your new TV and enjoy the warm light from your skylight. Great job on a beautiful kitchen.

Beautiful kitchen--love the island countertop and your flooring!

Beautiful kitchen, filled with light and yet still warm and inviting. That bi-level island is to die for.

Wow - your kitchen turned out great. I love all the colors together - its a very warm space and you have such a beautiful view outside as well. You have good taste! I even liked your old kitchen too!

That sunroom looks like a wonderful place to spend time. The new back splash and counter tops change the feel of the whole space. That island top is just 'wow'! So much new to enjoy.

Lynn2006: thanks for the link

That's WONderful! And I love how you set up the photos so we can go from before to after and really appreciate the difference, which is astounding. Enjoy!

Thanks, everyone, for your kind and generous comments on my new kitchen.

lynn2006: The idea for the shelves around the TV came from an old photo of Martha Stewart's kitchen:

The major purpose of the shelves is to hide the wiring behind the TV when it's pushed back against the wall (it's on a full-extension mount that rotates such that the TV can be seen from both ends of the room).

Thanks, too, for inserting the link. I still don't understand how to do it. What is "preview" mode? Is it in PhotoBucket or GardenWeb?

elizpiz: The copper switchplates are from www. switchhits.com.

downsy: The old kitchen dated from the original 1979 build by the previous owner. Their layout was so efficient that we barely changed it, except to move the cooking surface from the island to an outside wall so that it could be vented properly.

owls4me: Yes, we love the new, more open sunroom space. We sit there now whenever we can. The old sunroom had devolved into the dog's room, and we barely used it.

rhome410: I set up the photos using PhotoBucket's new "Organize" feature that lets you drag and drop album images anywhere you want them in the final queue.

It's really pretty and the best before/after photos evah.

Maydl,

I think the only reason why the whole Kitchen Forum has yet to smother you with all the congratulations you deserve is because they haven't yet clicked on the link to see this thread and/or your photos! (To tell you the truth, I almost missed it myself). There's no way one can look at your kitchen transformation and not be totally wowed. It's gorgeous! On top of it, the combo of space, color and light make it so warm and inviting. And, the pottery collection? Fantastic! Heck, forget about 2 thumbs up. This kitchen calls for two hands, two feet, whole body up in excitement! Very well done!

Thanks so much, bemorepanic and marthavila!

Marthavila, the "pottery collection" above the cabinets and on the display shelves is actually all Middle Eastern metalwork--mostly brass and copper, with a few pieces in bronze. There are a few nonmetal pieces somewhere in there (I think above the TV), but the rest is metalwork that is begging to be cleaned and polished. After we moved back into the kitchen, we just didn't have the oomph.

I'm sorry I still haven't figured out how to insert a live link to my PhotoBucket album, but lynn2006 kindly did that for me in her first post, directly after mine.

maydl...wow love your whole space! It looks like it was
pretty nice before and you tailored it just right to fit your family!
Your backsplash is really cool...great job, congrats and enjoy!
vic

Thanks, vic! You're right. The kitchen--at least the cooking part--worked really well before; that's why we didn't change the layout much. But everything in it was starting to fall apart, and remodeling was our chance to incorporate the latest must-haves, like loads of full-extension drawers. Those two improvements alone--nearly all drawers AND full-extension--have made a quantum change in how we use and enjoy our new kitchen.

Maydl, I had such fun looking at all your before and after pics. Your kitchen is gorgeous-- thanks for sharing. I love how you opened up the space and the warm finishes you chose. Beautiful!

GREAT kitchen. So warm. Love the floor, the backsplash, everything. Quite unique.

So beautiful, warm and inviting. Just gorgeous!

Morton5, jeannie_kitchen, and mustbnuts: Thanks for your kind words. Putting in all those warm colors was quite a stretch for us, because we are one of the most color-averse couples you'll ever meet (all the other walls in our house are off-white!). But we knew we wanted and needed to warm up the big, combined kitchen/sunroom space, and we both loved the terracotta color family, so I guess it worked!

Oh Maydl, it's so warm and lovely. Just gorgeous! You know I love, love the marble, but your colors are so inviting and I really love your accent pieces on top of the cabs ....are they greek? They really do something for the ambiance of the rooms, very nice touch.

Hey, maybe you could get a large pashima scarf to use when company comes to protect the marble. Might look rather chic and no one would need to know you were protecting your marble baby.

hello, it is technically off topic but I must know more about the beautiful Middle eastern pitcher/ewer collection in your kitchen--it is quite magnificent. I am enamored of all things middle eastern and turkish and anatolian and have quite the eclectic collection of textiles and ephemera. Can you tell me more about them, where and when they were made and how you came to acquire them.
Thanks you!

Ramses, I so appreciate your response. I never would have thought of a pashmina shawl as a table covering. What a great idea! Right now we're using eight wooden placemats side by side on top of a sheet of plastic--it looks barely OK to me, yet guests are intrigued by the look, go figure. We're in the market for an oriental rug for the sunroom, and the colors of that rug will drive the "palette" for the rest of the furniture and window coverings still to be purchased. Your idea about the shawl could be perfect to carry out the theme of the oriental rug. Thanks!

Missopinion47: I don't think your question is off topic because, after all, you're asking about the decoration of our new kitchen! Most of the items in our collection of Middle Eastern metalwork (what's in the kitchen is just a fraction) are Persian in origin. We're uncertain of the ages of the pieces, so some might be old enough to actually be "Persian", and others are probably just new enough to be Iranian. On many of them there is calligraphy in Farsi or Arabic that we have yet to have translated. We also have pieces from Syria, Tunisia, and Morocco, and maybe some other countries we're not even aware of. Very few of them were purchased overseas. We bought most of them at antiques stores all over the United States. Also in our collection are lots more metal trays like the ones hanging on the walls in the kitchen, as well as inlaid wooden boxes, and Persian miniature paintings. We started collecting these items because we felt more comfortable with them than with more mainstream paintings or sculpture.

Really lovely space, maydl! Enjoy your new kitchen!

Sandy

Thank you for the information on the metalwork, It is stunning and unique and personalizes the space in ways I do not often see. Kudos to you for presenting your collection in such a lovely way that your kitchen and other spaces are marked as "yours." I find the shapes very evocative of another place and time--Bravo!

Thanks, Sandy, we are!

Missopinion47, glad the information on our metalwork was interesting to you. You've given me reason to want to clean and polish it again!

Congrats! It turned out beautiful.

Chefkev, coming from you, that is high praise, indeed. Thanks!

Hi maydl -
May I archive your kitchen in the Finished Kitchens Blog?..... We can always update the photos after you've added the window treatment above the sink. :-)
If so please submit the FKB Category Checklist so I can easily categorize your kitchen.
Thank you!

Thank you, starpooh, for the link. What a classy questionnaire! I've submitted the form.