everyday is beautiful: [ my kitchen reveal ]

WELL JUDGING from all of your comments on my before pics, I wasn't alone in my thinking about the overload of pine! Painting it out made a huge difference but my favourite thing is the new layout - much more open, access to the patio and who doesn't love an island?

our splurge:

Since the main reason for our reno was replacing that silly L-shaped sink and the damaged countertop, they were at the top of our shopping list. There were a few things that I had my heart set on that I knew I wasn't going to compromise on: a marble countertop on the island and a farmer's sink. My guy wanted granite and a gas stove. So knowing that we would be splurging on marble and granite, we would need to reel in the expenses on the rest of the kitchen.

how we saved:

We started shopping for a new stove and visited clearance centres to get the best deal. [tip: shop with flexibilty and an open mind - we landed a great deal on a display model 36" Wolf cooktop instead of finding a 30" stove so that meant rethinking the plan to make it work]. We found a hood the same width on clearance and bought a piece of stainless steel from a metal fabricator for the backsplash for a fraction of what the Wolf hood unit cost. We found a clearance pot drawer unit at Home Depot to support the cooktop, and a trip to IKEA for drawer pulls and backsplash accessories and our cooktop area was looking all right!

Since we now had a cooktop instead of a stove, we asked around and landed wall ovens and their cabinet that had been used at a trade show from my guy's work. And it would fit our existing microwave. Total score!! Since we now had some stainless, we needed a new matching fridge and dishwasher and I wanted a beverage fridge in the island - off to Lowe's to find something decent but not expensive. We found the marble subway tile at Lowe's as well which we knew would help tie in the marble on the island. A farmer's sink at the big box store was over $2000 but a visit to a kitchen/bath store landed us a Shaws Original sink from England for a 1/3 of the price.

We did all the work ourselves: drew up the plan using our existing cabinets; demolition; repositioned cabinets to form an island; installed cooktop, stainless steel backsplash and hood; moved upper cabinets over to accommodate hood, moved the sink plumbing; built sink cabinet and installed sink and faucet; trimmed out island, installed a plug into the island; put up backsplash tile; built wine rack; installed toekicks and crown moulding; installed an industrial pendant over the dining area; and painted. The only thing we didn't do was install the marble and granite.

Sorry... that was wordy!! Now on to the pics!!

and a few of the details...

So there you have it - our luxury kitchen on a budget! It was a lot of work but I'm thrilled with how it turned out. The space is brighter, fresher and much less dated. And since it's open to the living room, dining room and front door, it makes the space much prettier. I think I got the look and feel that I was after in my inspiration shots.

So let's take a look at it again...

before: