The Kitchen Plan

When we moved into our house last September we made a long list of changes/updates that we wanted to complete to rid the house of the "builder basic" feel.  These will need to be done over time of course, so we had to prioritize.  Due to our love of cooking and entertaining, the kitchen is high on that list.  Here are a couple pictures before we moved in:

 

Things we would like to change/add include:

1.  Paint cabinets white (I know what some of you are thinking...but my mind is made up)

2.  Change out black stove and dishwasher to stainless (we already bought stainless fridge)

3.  Add white subway tile back splash

4.  Take out the tile flooring and extend the hardwoods from the dining room into the kitchen (we would also like to refinish wood with a less red stain)

5.  Lower bar to counter height and add bar stools

{looking into kitchen from living room}

Notice how the bar counter really blocks off the kitchen;  it didn't flow.  The height was off too.  It was several inches higher than normal "bar height" so we would've had trouble finding stools that fit.
Here is another view:

{looking into dining/living area from kitchen}

We still wanted a bar for people to hang out while we are cooking, but didn't want anything that obstructs the view.  One day last week, when my parents were here, Ernesto and my dad whipped out a saw and got started on lowering the counter.   A chalk line was snapped for the first cut.

Luckily, it was just made of drywall and some 2x4's and they were able to cut into it easily and re-position the two outlets.
This heavy piece of granite was attached using some type of glue, which could account for it not being completely level, but that 2x4 was not going anywhere, so we kept it and used screws for extra stability and added a couple wood corbels.

Ideally we wanted the counter to be the same height as the island, but to avoid having a huge line in the granite, we opted to set the bar piece just on the edge of the island. Now there is a 1 inch lip separating the island and bar granite pieces and I really like the separation.

Im so glad I have handy men in my life.  What a huge difference it made!

We painted the kitchen walls with Martha Stewart's Morning Fog (#MSL115) and I love it.  It's a very light color and very crisp next to the white wood work.  It will look even brighter once we have the cabinets painted and the subway tile up.  (we did not paint where the tile is going under the cabinets)

The ceiling will be painted River Mist (a darker shade of the walls #MSL119)

You can see above that the back door is painted Magnetite (#MSL278), a rich charcoal gray.  I will paint the inside of the front door this color too.  We have have four interior white doors as well on the first level, and I plan to paint them like the picture below.  (white with dark gray highlights)  I think it's going to look fabulous!

{via Pinterest}

I will show you the view from other direction (into living room) just as soon as we are back from San Diego....and I have it cleaned up:)  I picked up my orange rug from the cleaners last week and it really makes the room.  Even with the $95 cost of dry cleaning, it was a steal!