Kitchen Upgrade Part 2

We are almost, almost, almost done with our kitchen transformation. I worked on painting the cabinets for MONTHS. It was a huge project but very personally satisfying. 

Move In Day

I worked section by section in the kitchen, emptying the cabinets, cleaning, sanding, priming and painting. This allowed our kitchen to be mostly functional for the months that it took me to finish. (I'm squeezing this in between work and helping at the kids' school, as well as participating in their after school activities). I painted inside and out..and under the hanging cabinets. I set up a shelf painting station in our front room to help with the process. 

Our version of "open shelving" while the cabinet fronts are painted

Working section by section 

My shelf painting station

In "Kitchen Upgrade Part 1" I talked about adding trim to the island and extending the cabinets all the way to the ceiling. It really gives the kitchen a nice finished look. 

Using some wood fill 

After I finished all the painting, we called in a plumber to move the kitchen sink from the corner cabinet to the area in front of the window. It is really unclear to me why they squashed it in that corner in the first place. The placement under the cabinet was awkward and made it difficult to have two people cooking in the kitchen at the same time- very strange given how large the kitchen actually is. 

Kitchen sink- Before

We went for a few months with plywood covering the hole in our counter top while saving up some money to purchase new granite counters. Even with our funky temporary set up the kitchen was starting to have a better traffic flow. 

It took a while to decide on the sink. I first thought I wanted a divided sink with a low partition in stainless steel finish. Then a large bowl...but finally decided on a light gray quartz off-set sink with a side drain. It's a huge sink and we panicked when it was delivered, but once the counter top guys got in installed, it was the perfect size. We love it. 

Kitchen sink- After

After several trips to various granite suppliers, we decided on a pattern, color and price point. It's difficult to see in the photos but we went with a white base with gray, black and silver sparkly flecks. It has light "swirling" of color in places but is fairly simple which suits us just fine.

Granite installation was very quick and easy. They laser measured and were able to schedule us quickly for installation. The installers were in and out in a half day. 

Island going in

What looks white on the wall above the counter is actually unpainted; were in the process now of adding a back splash that will go from the bottom of the cabinets to the counters. Deciding on a back splash has been the most difficult choice so far! We're nearly done...just finishing the grout this week...I can't wait to show you the finished product. But for now, here is our almost done kitchen! 

Beautiful!