Our kitchen

Ok, can I just say how stoked I am that I actually have people sending me messages saying I have to post finished pictures because they "NEED" to see how our kitchen looks now?  I'm so happy to know you guys are actually enjoying my chatter!  So without further adieu (I had to google that one!), here is our finished kitchen!!  (Minus window treatments!! Don't get me started...)  And to all you photographers out there-please don't hate me for the lighting and all that.  It was already getting dark outside, and I didn't want to use the flash, so every light in my house is on. :)

Before

After!

Before

After!

Before

After!

I told you our to-do list included adding an island...and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way ours turned out!  We designed it ourselves!

Isn't it beautiful!??!  And my 2 favorite things about it...

1. Pull out double trash can.  Best invention ever!

2. Cabinets on the back!  The Home Depot lady tried to get me to put a cheaper panel across the back because kids would sit at the stools and kick the island.  This is true.  BUT-we needed all the storage we could get in this house!  So I did this.

I'm not lovin the white stools with the oak tops, but they were free.  And after all our renovations, I like free.  So, until we can get some prettier ones, they work!

Another favorite thing about my kitchen that was a must for me was the white porcelain farm sink!  I saw pictures of them online before we started the kitchen, and I had to have one!!  So, I gave up some other small things I wanted to justify spending the money on my dream sink.  LOVE <3

One of the ways I cut back to afford my sink, was in the backsplash.  We originally planned to do tile.  I searched and searched and couldn't find anything I loved.  Then one day while Ben was at work and my dad was over working at the house, I suggested sticking up a piece of bead board to see what it looked like.  Have I mentioned my obsession with bead board yet?  You will see it a lot in my house!  I think it is absolutely perfect for a farm house back splash! And it used less than 1 sheet of bead board, so the whole back splash was less than $20 bucks!  My talented daddy just nailed it up with the easy little finishing nails, but I've heard of people using liquid nails and that works too!  I painted it Sherwin William's "Rain" like the rest of my kitchen.

Granite countertops is another thing we really wanted!!  We looked at tons and tons of samples, and went to the granite places several different times to look at the slabs.  We ended up driving to Charlotte, NC (about an hour from us) to choose our exact piece.  I LOVE it.  It's called Sapphire Blue.  It matches the cabinets perfectly and has just the right amount of blue to play off my walls.

This is something I just did recently.  We got 4 inches of snow in January, and everything was closed for a week!  So, I got stir crazy and did this.

I think it adds some personality to the kitchen, and as you can see, my daughter enjoys it too!  I just taped off the area I wanted painted and did two five nine coats of magnetic paint.  Then once it was completely dry, I put two coats of chalkboard paint on top of it.  Word of advice if you are going to use magnetic paint:  save yourself some aching triceps, and just take the can to the hardware store and let them shake it up on their little machine thingy.  That stuff has to be shaken like Cuh-RAZY!!!  I shook it for about 30 minutes straight and felt like I did 100 push ups the next day.  I should have listened to the Thrifty Decor Chick!!

And just to prove what us women are capable of-here is my mom the day we decided we wanted my microwave to come OUT of the box where it had been sitting for 3 weeks, and actually get hung.  My dad and Ben were busy with something else that day and we were tired of waiting.  So here is "Grandma!"

So there it is!  That's our kitchen!  All that is left is window treatments!  And they are coming soon...

Linking up with The Thrifty Decor Chick