So we're moving…again.

I figured it's about darn time I finished our renovation pictures because WE'RE MOVING. Again. We bought another dump about 20 minutes away and will be fixing it up.  I'll write about that one day soon and share the way God totally orchestrated the purchase of our new place and the sale of this house.


But in the  meantime it's been bugging me that I started documenting the renovation process and stopped before I could finish all of the "after" pics. ( I took a break from writing about our renovations because our daughter arrived prematurely in February.  You can read about that here.  Also, I just flat got lazy.)  So let's finish this!  Today I'll tackle the kitchen.

Since it's been a while, let's look back at the kitchen before:

And here is the kitchen now:

We are so happy with the way the kitchen turned out.  My father-in-law owns a high-end kitchen cabinet company and he hooked us up.  Together with my husband, he designed the layout of the kitchen in order to maximize our storage space.  (1800 square feet with 4 kids needs as much storage space as possible!).  We went with melamine cabinets, which is the cheapest option.  Our big "splurge" (of the entire house, actually) was the caesar stone island.  But even that was a remnant at the store and so we got it for cheaper than if we'd bought it new.

I need to pause right now and give my awesome sister-in-law HUGE props for helping with the design of the house.  Miranda is an interior designer and she made this process oh so easy for me. I rarely called my husband with questions; it was usually Miranda.  She met me and helped me envision almost every aspect of this house: lights, tile, paint, countertops, etc.  THANK YOU MIRANDA!!!

The pendant lights over the island were the first thing I bought after we closed on the house. I'd been eyeing these seeded glass globe pendants from West Elm.  They were a steal at $30 each and I love them.  Unfortunately they no longer sell them so I can't use them in the next house. (insert sad face emoji).

I should have mentioned that the island is actually not melamine.  Melamine cabinets only come in white. I wanted the island to be grey so these cabinets are actually wood and they are a shade called "lamplighter grey."  It's very subtle but I liked it.  To be honest though, I won't use it in the next house. But that's only because the island is such a high-traffic area and our kids have chipped and nicked the paint a ton. Next time I'll go with my sister-in-law's idea and either get the island stained or have it done with reclaimed wood. 

I'll tell ya right now the BIGGEST thing we regret in our house is buying these floors. They show EVERYTHING.  I literally vacuum at least 3-4 times a day.  Don't buy cheap floors friends. It'll cost you your sanity. 

Because of our budget, we couldn't afford to do caesar stone in the entire kitchen.  So on the perimeter I did a grey laminate. Laminate has come A LONG way! I love the marble-looking laminate in our master bathroom, for example. But this grey laminate…oh I do not like it at all. 

So there's our kitchen reno! Later this week I'll finish up our reno. 

Xo,

E