New Kitchen

We decided to redo our kitchen (I have a list of things I want to redo in our new house) recently. We did lots of shopping and research. When we moved in, the appliances were older and worked for the most part, but as we lived here, they weren't meeting our needs. The worst one was the dishwasher, which was rusted, smelly, and didn't have enough room for our billions of kid-sized forks and spoons. The other bad thing was that the microwave was built-in above the stove. This sounds nice, but just wasn't practical in our kitchen. The microwave hung down so low that you couldn't even stir pots that were in the back on the stove. The stove was the old coil burner type with the knobs in the front middle. One day while I was cooking, the boys were helping and when I turned my back, Brody was turning the knobs! I just can't have that! They don't help all that often, but it just takes once. The oven was fine, but the inside light didn't work and the knob broke off of the timer, so I was using a paper clip to turn it. So when we decided to get all new appliances, that meant that we should get new countertops, sink, faucet, and backsplash to go with it (why not, right)? So we ended up chosing granite, a stainless steel sink, cute faucet (the plumber and Sean did not approve, but I like it), and travertine tile to go with our new black appliances. Here are the befores and afters: Old stove, microwave, and oven (on wall)

Old dishwasher, sink, counter

More old

New microwave and oven. We had a drawer built for underneath the oven for more storage. I still have painting to do :-)

New sink, faucet, dishwasher, backsplash

We put in a hood instead of the microwave, and did a fun different tile above the stove. I love my cooktop - it has no knobs! It's all touch (and does include a child lock). Sean and I also installed undercabinet lighting wired directly to the outlet, so I don't have any ugly plugs hanging out.