Without Further Ado...

...allow me to (finally) reveal the updated kitchen in our new abode!

We've had the kitchen at this stage for a couple of weeks now, but what with our overwhelmingly-busy schedule as of late and, quite frankly, being rather tired of talking or thinking about the project overall, it's taken until now to write about it. You understand.

Anyway, a quick reminder of where we started and what we had to work with...

After staring at this in the living room for far too long getting all of these painted...

A coat of primer on each side + 2 coats of paint per side + drying time
= a much longer project than anticipated!

...and, after removing wallpaper...

Oh, so much wallpaper....
I'm still not ready to talk about it.

...mudding, then sanding, the sheetrock...

...priming and painting the base cabinetry...

...buying a fridge (!!!)...

...priming and painting the trim and walls...

We used two tones of grey, one above the chair rail in the dining area,
and a darker tone on the island and above the cabinetry.

(Valspar "Clean White", Olympic "Thin Ice", Olympic "Flagstone", & Valspar "Graphite"
all color-matched to Olympic Premium Semi-Gloss, Zero-VOC)

...painting the back of the built-ins, a la Young House Love...

We used the same deep tone for the built-ins as was used
below the chair rail in the dining area.

...and using a kitchen that looked like this for a while...

Mom was right...
it was surprisingly handy to not have the cabinet doors! 

...we bought and installed new hardware, and ended up with this!

We could not be happier with the finished product as it stands now. (I love the way YHL refers to their project photos: 'Before' and 'In Progress', instead of 'After'. There's always something else to do. Is it ever really finished?!)

We chose the white kitchen in order for the cabinetry to coordinate with the already-white built-ins, and it is most certainly a much more cohesive look now. The room feels far more open and inviting, and we were tickled by how our color choices really do work with the existing tile flooring. I absolutely love how much lighter the room is, how the white appliances (that I was never particularly fond of) now blend in almost seamlessly with the cabinetry, and how the butcher-block countertop really "fits" now. As my mom said, the kitchen now "feels contemporary, yet classic"...and, more importantly, it is very much "us".

Sure, there's more to be done. We have visions of a silver pendant light above the sink, new (non-fluorescent) lighting fixtures for the ceiling, and under-cabinet lighting, too. Bobby wants to paint the trim in the ceiling above the table, and we still need to paint the window trim...and the door frames...and the doors. But, all in due time. For now, we are just absolutely enjoying this feeling of completion and success for what we've done together so far! (And, I do mean "together". This project was so much fun, and so meaningful, because it was a joint effort. I'm having a blast making this house our home, with Bobby.)

We really did start our home renovation career with what I would consider to be one of the more challenging, costly, and lengthiest projects. We've agreed that anything else is going to seem like a piece of cake! Take, for example, our next project in the line-up...painting the non-wallpaper-covered living room! Shoot, that'll be a breeze.