Overall we came in under budget for this project thanks to dogged sales shopping AND not making any big changes once the contractor got started. It also helped that my contractor and I worked out a flat fee arrangement. He didn't charge me a penny over his bid. I simply made four installment payments during the project, with the last payment being handed over after all punch list items were addressed. He was fabulous, his crew was fabulous, and we definitely plan on using them in a couple years when we add an en suite bathroom to our guest room in a couple years.

Some materials information:
Cabinets - Dayton White courtesy of CliqStudios
Flooring - Handscraped 5" bamboo from Lumber Liquidators - got it dirt cheap since it was on closeout.
Countertops - New Venetian Gold - our granite fabricator is great (we�ve used him before) and I paid only $2800 for 82 sq ft of installed granite!
Sink - Silgranit Precis in Anthracite (black) - got it on sale for less than half the normal retail price!
Faucet - Delta
Refrigerator - we didn't replace this - it's a 2-year-old Whirlpool
Ovens - these are new - Fridgidaire 30" FFET3025LB model - after rebates and a sales price we were under budget for this item
Microwave - we didn't replace this - it's about 6 years old
Cooktop - we didn't replace this - it's at least 8 years old, GE, and still works great
Hood - AirPRO 42-inch Wall-Mounted Stainless Steel Range Hood - AP238-PSF-42
Dishwasher - we didn't replace this, a GE model of some kind, about 4 years old
Backsplash over stovetop - Black Galaxy 12" tiles, from a local tile shop
Pulls - Amerock 3" weathered nickel BP19259WN from Home Depot
Pendant lights - Vaxcel Lighting in Mosaic Shell PD5320B
Paint - Valspar's "New England Yellow"

My contractor supplied the windows to match the ones we have in the adjacent family room. Can't remember the brand/model off hand, but they are gorgeous double-swing windows. Tomorrow we're having cafe shutters installed in the lower half of the windows for privacy. We won't be putting any curtains up at all.

And in order to get a better feel for the change, here is a picture of our OLD kitchen. This shows what our old kitchen looked and felt like before.

This is now what people see when they initially walk into the kitchen space from the front foyer hallway. I wanted the small island to have a display element for some of my Fiestaware:

This is the "functional" side of the same island. The island houses a trash can drawer, the below-counter microwave, and lots of storage:

Here's a picture of my husband's coffee bar area next to the fridge. All our coffee/tea stuff is in this area, as well as just about anything related to drinks.

We love the cooking zone - and the new 30" wall ovens!! We used to have 24" ovens that were a joke, so going up to 30" ovens was a real treat for us and considered a MUST HAVE. To us they are simply ginormous!! The doorway to the dining room was originally near this corner, but in the redesign we moved it so that the cooking zone would be undisturbed by foot traffic.

Here's a picture of our new pantry, which is 6'6"x8'4". The pantry is situated on the northeast corner of the house and shaded by trees, so it should stay nice and cool even in summer. We debated putting in some actual cabinetry with counters, but in the end opted to have just shelves. The top shelf is dedicated to gadgets we only use sporadically, and the floor is mostly dedicated to paper products like paper towels and napkins, as well as water and soda bottles. The counter-height shelf on the left and the shelf below it are 20" deep so we do have a sense of having a counter, and we use it to put the bags of groceries when we come in from shopping. The shelves on the right side are all 12" deep from top to bottom. We keep our toaster in here since we hardly ever use it.

Here's the view of our main workzone, including our Silgranit sink. We made the aisle wide enough that my husband and I can be back to back in this area and not bump into each other.

Here's a view of the same workzone from the raised bar side of the big island. On the left side of this picture you can see the desk area that used to be our pantry. The kids have taken over this area and now do their homework there every night - which is exactly what I wanted!

Here's a view of our eat-in area, which is where part of the old walk-out patio was. The table as set in the picture is for six, but that table expands to seat 12 and we have just enough room to fit the chairs on each end. I love the openness of the space, which was an improvement over the cramped eat-in area of our old kitchen. You can�t see them in the picture, but we have another window and new sliding glass doors that match the windows on the other wall in the breakfast area. Those doors lead to a new walkout patio that we will eventually turn into a screened in porch � probably AFTER we do the en suite bathroom project in our guest room.

Here's an overview shot taken from the breakfast area into the kitchen. We could easily fit another 2-3 bar stools at the raised bar, but decided that would make it look too crowded.

Lastly, here is the big overview shot of the entire kitchen space, as viewed from our family room. We LOVE LOVE LOVE the new space. We had our annual Christmas party just last weekend and we had 35 people in the house milling around. At one point we had over 18 people in our kitchen area, and it was not crowded at all. Not only that, but because of the way the kitchen is set up, no one got in my way as I worked at the cooking zone getting hot appetizers ready throughout the night. It was an easy-breezy party, unlike past years where we struggled to open the oven because people were in the way, or had no place to put hot pans because we had no counter space next to the ovens, or had to push people out the way in order to get to the fridge. Basically, we love our new kitchen!

Enjoy your beautiful and wonderfully functional kitchen!

I like your drainboard sink, too.

Enjoy!

Nancy

And really, when was the last time we heard the words "contractor" and "fabulous" in the same sentence? Glad you had a great experience!

Congratulations! And thanks for returning to share the final pics with us!

They sure are pretty!

The black galaxy tiles look so nice as a backsplash. Are you happy with them?

Enjoy!

Enjoy the new space!

Cj

As someone who has had a terrible contractor experience, it's good to hear when people are happy with theirs!
You should post his name and contact info and your approximate location so others can use him. Good work should be rewarded with referrals! : )

Congrats on a lovely kitchen!

We only have a couple regrets - and they are pretty minor. We had wanted to do lighting along the top of the cabinets, but decided to go with under cabinet lighting only. We now wish we had gone ahead and done top of cabinet lighting, but that's a relatively easy "add-on" down the road. Lastly, we added some new pot lights (can lights) during the renovation, but we wish we had put a couple more in. However, since when it's just us we typically ONLY have the pendant lights and the range hood lights on, it's not that big a deal.

To answer some questions:

crl_: Yes, CliqStudios is the online place. We were very happy overall with their work and their product. We hated their shipping company (they didn't damage anything, and shipping only took ~3 weeks, but they did attempt to charge me a storage fee when they forgot to deliver a pallet - one quick email to CliqStudios and they took care of it), but I just got confirmation a couple days ago that due to the amount of customer complaints they are in the process of signing on with a DIFFERENT shipping company, so that should fix that problem. Construction of the cabinets is good - my contractor liked them and felt they were pretty decent quality.

partyof7: we love the black galaxy backsplash! It has tiny flecks of coppery rust that sparkle when we turn on the range hood lights - it's a really nice effect!

hobokenkitchen: I posted a rave review of our contractor on Angie's List as soon as the project was 100% completed, and have given his name out to many of my neighbors who are also looking to take on renovation projects. Most of those neighbors were at the Christmas party and reiterated their intent to call him. I predict he'll be getting quite busy returning phone calls in the upcoming months!!!

We are in the Charlotte, NC metro area.

Are you pleased with the sink's built-in drain? I've been studying up on sinks lately and would love to hear your pros and cons.

I'm thrilled to see your pantry and to see the size -- it should be a rule that every picture should be accompanied with dimensions! Your pantry is almost exactly the same size as the one we're planning, and I'm glad to see it "in person".

Love your pendant lighting. One thing I've learned about myself through my planning is that I don't like too much "up top clutter", and your lights are perfect: enough light, but not cluttery.

On the pantry, at first my husband didn't think it would be big enough (when it didn't have any shelves). I told him he was crazy. Our goal was to not have ANY food in the main kitchen area other than what was in the fridge, and we succeeded. The only food item we have in the main kitchen is his coffee, which he keeps next to the coffeemaker.

My husband found the pendants. We were originally looking at something that had a bit of red in it so we could have a splash of red, but once he saw these and showed them to me, we knew these were the ones. They are a perfect blend of the yellow on the walls and the colors in the granite countertop.

I love the style of the Dayton door. Before I finish the kitchen, I was going to add recessed lights in my home office since the rooms flow into one another so that one ceiling paint job can be done. My kitchen recessed lights are halogen which I love but they do get hot so I am trying to figure out what to do for the home office. What light bulbs did you use?

How tall are your cabinets and how tall is your ceiling? My kitchen ceiling is only 8 feet tall. I don't have room for an island as my kitchen is only about 12 X 14 if there is nothing in the kitchen and one wall had a sliding door on it and the other wall has half of it open to the family room.

By the way, I like the darker backsplash behind your range as it really adds to the overall look of the kitchen and adds a pop of dark to make everything not so white. I LOVE your pantry closet and wish mine was so big but at least I have a pantry closet on the right of the refrigerator before the sliding door in the kitchen since many townhouses do not.

I wish you lived near me so I could hire your contractor as I can't seem to find anyone I am comfortable with. I live in Northern NJ.

What light bulbs did you use?
The pendants use candle bulbs, and we have a mix of CFL and "regular" flood bulbs in the workspace.

How tall are your cabinets and how tall is your ceiling?
We opted for 36" cabinets instead of 42". In our old kitchen we had 42" and the top shelves were all empty because neither of us could reach them without getting a chair. So we stuck with 36" this time around. Our ceiling is 9" tall.

By the way, I like the darker backsplash behind your range as it really adds to the overall look of the kitchen and adds a pop of dark to make everything not so white.
Thank you! We debated for more than a couple weeks about what to do for the backsplash - we just saw so many great ideas online and couldn't decide! In the end, we decided to stick with something simple, and we're quite pleased!

Would love to have your GIANT pantry!!

Did you previously post more before pics? If so, can you direct me to that thread? I'd love to see what space you were working with initially. Helps me to see the posibilities as I contemplate my own remodel.

Glad that you had a good experience with your contractors. That seems rare here in GW. Who desigened your kitchen; you, your GC or ??

Curious in your coffee area, why did you do a side splash on only one side? I know, probably an odd quirky question, but since it was one of your first pics and a shot of only that area, it just stood out.

Thanks and enjoy your great space!

I'm probably not far away from you. Sorry I missed your party, LOL.

Thanks for letting me know more about your recessed lighting.

I have 30" tall cabinets right now and I can't reach the two two shelves as I am only 4'10" tall so I am going to go with the 36" tall cabinets and I am so glad you did also since they look so nice! I only have an 8 foot ceiling so I will have to decide if I am going to do crown molding to the ceiling or just a little bit of crown molding.

Again, I love your kitchen. You did a great job!

Did you previously post more before pics?
No, the only pictures I posted were of potential floorplans. The only picture I have of the "before" is the small one at the top of the post.

Who desigened your kitchen; you, your GC or ??
The design was a mix of an architect we hired and our own desires. We told him what we wanted, he drew it, and then we made modifications. It was well worth the investment.

Curious in your coffee area, why did you do a side splash on only one side?
I never noticed that until you pointed it out! *lol* I have no idea why our fabricator didn't do that side! I may call him and see if he can drop off another piece!

a2gemini:

How do the shelves fit together in the corners? Are they actually connected or just touching?
They are touching, and our GC screwed in mending braces underneath the shelves so that they would remain level and not spread over time.

When you say you used an architect, did you just have him draw out the layout and make changes or did you have him manage the entire project, show up on-site, apply for permits, etc?

You have it !!! GOOD KITCHEN KARMA.
So happy you had a smooth renovation. It looks lovely AND great for parties (VERY IMPORTANT)
So you went w/36" cabs(9'ceiling) you rebel you. I didn't take my cabinets to the ceiling and I was getting the impression(from some threads) that everyone(real estate) would comment that they look "cheap". Yours look quite nice.

eatrealfood:
Yes, we love the 36" cabinets and they actually make our ceiling feel taller than 9'! It also helps that our contractor did an AMAZING job with the molding along the ceiling, which kind of "fills" the space above the cabinets. I personally feel 42" cabinets are over-rated because of that top, useless shelf that the average person never uses because it's just too high up!