congratulations! you've done very well with the space you have. nice job! very classy.

Of course I'm going to have gobs of questions for you!

1. How tall are your ceilings?
2. How was it to work with buycabinets.com?
3. Do your cabs go all the way to the top?

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! I love the color scheme and everything! GORGEOUS!

Hi kbmas0n, here are a few answers for you! My ceilings before the remodel were 8'10" high, and I dropped them slightly to accomodate the recessed lights. They're now about 8'5", I think. The cabs (which are 42" tall) do go all the way to the top, with some crown moulding. I'll have to take another pic that makes that more clear. Buycabinets.com was GREAT and I highly recommend them - I saved about $3-4K over what I would have paid for the same cabs from HD. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know!

WOW!

Bet you won't be hanging your oven mitts on the ends of those cupboards!!! :>)

I'm so happy for you! Maybe Santa will bring you a new toaster oven! If not, there are lots on sale right now.

Rae

What a great use of color and materials! Your space is distinctive and inviting. Congratulations!

A question - I must have missed the "lascatx" spice drawer thread. Can you give more information on that? Is it something you can purchase to put in an existing drawer?

amck, sorry about the spice drawer confusion - "lascatx" is a poster on here who is FAMOUS for her spice drawer! If you do a search on her name, you'll probably find a picture or two. She just has an entire drawer in one of her lower cabinets devoted to spices, all in identical jars with labels on top, in rows of 10. I have the drawer directly under my kitchenaid mixer set up the same way - I found jars at specialtybottle.com that are the perfect size and I filled the drawer with them - the 24" wide drawer fit 99 jars exactly. I'll take a pic of that later and post it for you!

It looks beautiful!! Love your colors and all the mixing - you done good!!! :)

Don't forget your terrific tile guy! :-)

Your kitchen turned out great! I am so excited for you! Isn't it wonderful walking into your kitchen knowing it's all done?

Oh YEAH! I have to give credit to Terry - he did an AMAZING job on the backsplash. I shudder to think what kind of mess I would have had if my original contractor had been allowed to do that job!

AWESOME!! I thought maybe you had posted it already and I'd missed it. It turned out great. How well does it function for you?

You mean Kerry? LOL!

We still have to plan/choose stuff for the bathrooms, but at least I know we'll have a great a tile guy for those! Fingers are crossed he'll be available when we are!

Oops - my brain and fingers aren't communicating well today! Yes, I meant Kerry - he is fabulous!

Anyway, Lyfia, so far it's GREAT! The area to the left of the stove is my primary cutting/prep area, and it's so nice just to be able to turn around and dump trash into the sink and down the disposal. The position of the dishwasher across from the stove is not ideal, but it was unavoidable and it can be worked around. Originally, the dishwasher was supposed to be on the right side of the sink, which I now realize would have been even worse, because the sink would have been right across from the stove. The problem is that the aisle is not wide enough to allow two people to stand across from each other comfortably, so no one would have been able to use the sink if I had been at the stove, etc. My sister was in town last weekend and we did some candy making, which was SO easy - we just spread everything out to dry all the way down the length of the counter, and she sat at the mini-bar to do the detail work. I can't even begin to tell you what an improvement EVERYTHING is!!!!!!!!!

Beautiful kitchen! I love your backsplash! Everything looks great!

Love it! The color scheme, the layout, the cabs and hardware- great!

Oh WOW!!! Now that's a whole lot of improvement! It's gorgeous and very well done with the small area. Although, it doesn't seem small anymore. Congratulations!

Thanks for the extra information! So are the Somersby cabs the same as Thomasville? Or Kraftmaid? I can't remember. Thanks!

Somersby are the same as Thomasville. I wanted Kraftmaid, but buycabinets doesn't sell Kraftmaid in my area. I am really happy with the Somersby/Thomasville cabs, though - they're fabulous!

That kitchen has the WOW factor. I would love to know the name of that paint color.

Looks fantastic!

What a transformation! It's really gorgeous, and it looks like you've made great use of your space. I love your color choices; they lend the room so much character.

One quick question: How would you rate the quality of the bar pulls from Contempo Living? I was looking at those on eBay just last night. The price is certainly right, and they seem to have all of the lengths that I would need, but I'm wary of ordering hardware sight unseen.

It looks really great. I love your choices. It's nice to see how great a smaller kitchen remodel can be.

I love love love your color choices! You will never get tired of that backsplash - just beautiful. The cabinets look so rich!

i've been looking forward to seeing this! you really did a great job with the color selections. and i was happy to see you have cerodomus tile; i'd never heard of it, but it is one of the brands the cheapest tile place around me carries. :)

I was wondering where you were. Last week I actually looked to see if I missed your final pics and headed out to the Finished Kitchen site.

Your kitchen is absolutely fabulous! It might be small but it has so much to look at. I love all your choices. Everything goes so well together. I would be too afraid to try a daring wall color and backsplash. BUT IT REALLY WORKS!!

Congrats!

Ooooohhhh I love the color scheme! Just beautiful! More photos please. Nice job.

What a gorgeous, sophisticated (NY?) kitchen! Great floor, great cabs - a before and after worthy of a magazine spread because it is REAL! Love it.
Rayna

P.S. How do you like your faucet?

biondanonima,

Fabulous transformation!

I have a question about your bar pulls. How are they in reel life? I have looked that the Ikea ones and found them to be disappointing. (They are multiple pieces just held together by the attachment screws.)

Are these welded together in one piece - the bar and the legs? How is the finish? In general do they seem to be a high quality, good looking and sturdy product?

What a beautiful kitchen - you must be so proud. The colors are great.

I have to ask....what is the furball in the picture of your old kitchen...looks just like the backside of my sweetie cat Josie - she was a stray (-1yo) when we found her, but she's always been such a beautiful cat with a curled tail and hair color/sheen that changes with her moods.

I love it! I am so happy for you, I know how hard you ahve worked on your kitchen. And, as a fellow Susan jablon fan, I can tell you your backsplash is exquisite! ;-) I seriously love how you brought out the orange in everything.

To answer a few of your questions:

Fran1523: the paint color is Valspar's Pompei Orange. Oddly enough, they spell Pompei with only one 'i'.

Quantumkitchen and Paulma: I am fairly happy with the quality of the pulls from contempo living. They're very heavy and have a nice feel. The legs are separate from the bar, though, so if you get them you'll want to check that the legs screw in securely - a couple of mine had to be replaced. Also, the bolt that holds the handle to the drawer is not a standard size, and my contractor lost a few of them, so that was a little bit of a hassle because I couldn't just run to HD for new ones. The ebay seller was excellent to deal with though, and sent me replacement pulls and screws, no questions asked.

Rayna: it is a NYC kitchen (Queens) and I LOVE the faucet. It's so nice to be able to turn it on with a pinky finger when my hands are dirty, and I love that I don't have to adjust two knobs to get the right water temp. The spray feature and pause button are great too!

Brownli: the furball in the first pic is my old Persian cat Xerxes, who passed away in 2004. He was the CUTEST cat ever, with so much personality. I believe his official color was lilac - hard to see in that pic, but he was a solid grey with a little bit of a purplish undertone. Here's a close up:

Anyway, thanks for all the compliments - I'll be sure to post some more pics soon!

What a transformation! I love your colours and how creative you were mixing your own backsplash!

Would you mind telling me what the distance is between the 2 sides of your galley? I'm thinking it looks pretty similar to how our configuration will end up and it's nice to see how it works in yours.
Thanks.

Tartanhabit, the kitchen is exactly 7 feet wide, with standard 24" depth cabinets, so the aisle is 3 feet less an inch or two for the countertop overhang. It's actually a GREAT width for a single cook, because everything is just a step or turn away, but it's not so good for multiple people, unless one person is prepping at one end of the counter while the other is at the stove. One at the sink and one at the stove is okay too. Luckily, I'm usually cooking by myself, and if someone else is in there they're just there to chat or do something that doesn't require stove/dishwasher access.

Beautiful, I'm sure you must be so proud and pleased with it!

One recommendation on the Somersby/Thomasville cabinetry - I have the Thomasville cabinets. They come with movable shelves. While this is very nice to be able to put them where you want them, it has drawbacks. Don't miss a shelf pin someplace. My GC put the shelves where I wanted them, but did not use the back shelf pins. All of a sudden, the shelf in my pots-pans cabinet let loose. I was thankful that I had NO fragile glassware in that cabinet! I immediately went looking for the shelf pins, and fixed that little problem. Then went through the rest of my cabinets and looked to see what other pins might be missing/unused, and rendered that a non-problem.

DonnaR/CA

Are you sure that's your kitchen? I could swear I've seen it in one of my Luxury Kitchens books. Oh wait! You're is way more functional than most of those kitchens. Most of those kitchens weren't designed and cried over by someone who was TKO!

I love your choices! You managed to make it look new in a warm, functional way, while making it look like it was the kitchen that was always there! I love the contrast of the orange with the black cabinets and the tile backsplash really pulls it all together.

I especially love your floor. The size and pattern are so well done. It really works well to break up the potentially long, galley look. And the lights above the eating area are stunning!

You've really outdone yourself with this one. Congratulations!

Thanks guys! i realize my pics are probably not detailed enough for the TKO crowd, so I will post some better ones this weekend. If anyone wants close-ups of anything, let me know!

btw, i was happy to see i'm not the only person keeping an undercabinet towel holder in the remodel! it's all about space in a small kitchen. :)

biondanomina - sounds to me like it is very functional. I think in all kitchens you usually have to trade off something and yours seem like it isn't too bad for the space you have.

Speaking of photos - could I ask to see the cabinets by the window. Just curious to see how that turned out too.

WoW!!! Gorgeous kitchen!

Wow! I can't imagine working in the before kitchen, but you have created a very functional, slick and yet warm galley with real, live counters! Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

And the spice drawer photo is below. My 24" drawer has 110 jars, so the exact number may vary with your jars and the make and measure of your drawers, but either way, it really packs a punch. My drawer is an adadptation of something I saw here a year or more ago. I had thought about something similar, but it took me seeing a picture and deciding to order all new jars to put it to use. It works really well. Glad others have found it useful too.

Here is a link that might be useful:

May I archive your kitchen in the Finished Kitchens Blog?
If so please submit the Category Checklist. Thank you!

Here is a link that might be useful: Finished Kitchen Category Checklist

Your kitchen looks wonderful. Enjoy -- especially having more counter space.

Hey, lovely kitchen. I have made similar color choices so it is great to see what some of them might look like. WHat is "Never MT" by the way?

What a fantastic transformation! It's gorgeous, not to mention efficient and well laid out. Love that backsplash and your lighting. The second thing that went thru my mind (the first being "WOW!") was, "Now THIS is what a sophisticated NYC kithen probably looks like!" I had no idea where you lived until I read all these posts, though. Congrats on your very cool kitchen!

That is one of the richest kitchens I've seen on here. It's really very lovely! And what a change in that space. You increased the value of that unit SOOO much with that kitchen!

Your furball was quite the gorgeous little kitty. I'm sure he'd appreciate the art in the new kitchen :)

It is beautiful!!! I love the color!!!! And from someone who has a galley kitchen ... it looks very funcational and so sophsicated!!

Christy