The Kitchen Renovation

My mother just pointed out that our kitchen renovation has been done for some time, and I never posted it.  My apologies!  And...I'm too lazy to go take good pictures, so here are some where it is dirty from awhile back.

Since we moved in, we have replaced appliances, redone the floor, counters, painted the cabinets, added one additional cabinet on the breakfast bar wall, changed the railing to the stairs, refinished the steps, removed spindles, built a new column, replaced skylights, put in under-cabinet lighting, changed the ceiling fan, new backsplash, replaced hardwear on the cabinets...um....I'm sure there's more.  A lot went into it, but we managed to do it fairly inexpensively between not replacing the cabinets, and doing 99% of the work ourselves (we did not install the skylights or counters).  I'm thrilled with how it turned out.  The only think I'd like to change (other than the style of the cabinets, which isn't happening), is getting rid of the horrible swirly pieces above the sink.  I haven't figured out what to do with them, though, so they remain the last vestiges of the "western saloon" that once was my kitchen.  Enjoy!

Just for reference?  Renovations take a lot longer with a toddler.  BIG thanks are owed to both of our parents who helped out by watching Robby on big renovation days, and to Chris who used a lot of vacation time.  Otherwise?  We were doing it at night after he went to sleep.  SOOOO tiring.  He goes down at 8, so we were often up until at least midnight in an effort to get through a stage.   

I appear to generally have avoided taking pictures of what my hideous kitchen used to look like?  Here's a couple were you can see a bit.   There were lots of spindles.  And medium brown cabinets.  And ugly laminate counters and floors. 

And...from the day we moved in.  (Apologies to those people who had hoped these would never see the light of day again.)

And now...all there is to ruin the view is toddler-created chaos.  Which is just fine by me.