Kitchen - Before and After

I am finally getting my before and after shots of the kitchen remodel.  Our remodel was not completed until December 5th and then we got very busy with the holidays.  In January, I wanted to finish the details like window coverings, rugs, wall hangings, etc. to give it that finished look.  This month got busy with visitors but NOW I am ready.  Above is the "before".  Below is "after".

Here are more...  Before

After

Before

After

You can see how my goal was to brighten up the kitchen and change out the dark wood and granite for a  lighter and more uplifting effect.  We left the cabinets and painted the uppers an off-white (Benjamin Moore called Elephant Tusk) and painted the lowers a navy blue.  We left the same flooring and replaced the old oven with a new wall oven and a new stovetop.  

There was a counter where the wall oven is but we don't miss it all.  We now have more space where the swinging door is by the pantry cupboards.

Our new sink is a single basin granite sink by Blanco and we love it.  It is chip-proof, scratch-proof and heat-proof.  The color is biscuit and blends in perfectly with the quartz countertops. 

We also love the backsplash which are subway tile with a bit of beveled design to give it some interest.  You can see how we eliminated electric sockets in the backsplash by installing the electrical sockets underneath the cabinets.  We keep the crockpot and food processor in large drawers where the oven was and I can use them anywhere on the counter since there are electrical sockets the whole length of the counter.  

We ended up with more drawer space and it's so nice to have lots of space for pot holders, hot pads and miscellaneous teas. 

There is a ginormous drawer under the wall oven and we take full advantage of it, as you can see. 

We opted for an induction stovetop and we love how quickly it heats up and the flush mount is very sleek and clean looking. 

We debated about another gas stovetop but I always hated cleaning our old gas stovetop in our old house and wanted something cleaner looking.  The new induction stovetops are so wonderful now and come in many colors besides black or white.  We got "champagne".  Nothing will burn when they touch the burners except for the pans and the pans must be magnetic in order for the induction heat to be effective.  So, if you have paper or plastic or wooden spoons or whatever, you can lay it right on the induction burner and it won't burn.  It must be a magnetic material.  If the liquid in the pan boils over, it will not stain the burners like an electric stovetop since it won't burn.  I already had a lot of iron skillets and pans for cooking but we did buy a couple other induction compatible pans.  I was also considering our kitchen layout when we chose induction.   The entrance to the kitchen from the living room and dinning room leads right to the stovetop which is the first thing you see.  The flush mount induction stovetop gives a very clean and modern look to the kitchen as seen from the other rooms.

We still were able to keep our knife drawer which is one of my favorite features in our kitchen. 

 I took this out of our kitchen when we moved from Idaho because I loved it so much.  Our Idaho kitchen had everything I ever wanted in a kitchen (pop-up mixer drawer and built in Miele espresso maker.)  We tried to figure out how to incorporate those things in our new kitchen here but to no avail. I did get to keep my knife drawer, tho.  The knife drawer is in a pullout drawer inside a larger pan drawer with another large pan drawer underneath that one.   Like I said before, I just love having so many drawers!

Here is a view of our breakfast bar looking out at Terminal 5 and the Duwamish River

and the kitchen sink area.

We are really happy with how our kitchen remodel turned out and we can't think of anything better we could have done.  The old cabinets are still really good now that they are painted with new hardware so I'm glad we did not spend the extra money to replace them.  Now that I look at these "before and after" photos, I can hardly imagine all that dark wood and busy, over-abundance of granite.  Our new kitchen is definitely my new happy place and a comfortable spot to gaze out the window and enjoy the view.