Thanks Karin. I don't have too much of a problem with things leaning for the light, partly because the house side is largely planted with Beacon Silver and White Nancy lamium. It's so dry on that side that there isn't a lot of options for what will grow. I planted the lamium about 18" from the house wall so it would have a better chance of getting moisture when it rains, and then waited to see if it would spread into the dryest area against the house. It did, and completely and rapidly filled the dry area. I like the silver as a 'carpet' under the other things that grow there. It enhances everything nicely and lights up an otherwise dark area. It probaly helped with the establishment of the lamium that I dumped potting soil (from pots I used to grow peas) as the top layer of 'lasagna' the fall I created the bed. The potting soil had 'water crystals' in it and the peas would have provided nitrogen. I watered with soaker hoses in the first year but haven't watered since. All the columbine that is in the bed comes from seeds I scattered from plants growing elsewhere in the garden. I think they establish better re drought tolerance that way, so they have filled in back to the house as well and, because they are quite shade tolerant, aren't prone to leaning. The Eupatorium 'Chocolate' was planted, not seed grown, and I wasn't sure if it would be too dry there for it but it seems to be thriving. It certainly billows but I wouldn't say it leans. It's fairly shade tolerant too. Essentially I planted the alley with things that are either shade lovers or shade tolerant to various degrees so I think that was the key to avoiding the leaning problem. I'm always concerned about evergreens outgrowing their space and, since the space is so limited, I didn't include any. The alley isn't visible from anywhere in the house and in winter it gets completely buried in several feet of snow usually (except for the snow-blown path) so evergreens for 'winter interest' was not an issue.

Great kitchen, Kelly! The wood color was a great choice--to me it's warm and inviting, and an all-round great mid-tone color. Can you specify which stain and doorstyle you used? I am looking at cabinets for my bathroom (I have granite left over). Also, I think there are a lot of people lurking here who never post and would want to know. My pre-remodel kitchen was very similar to yours, especially the color. Wasn't it great to say goodbye? Love the skylights. Fascinated by the photos of the process of building a skylight. Did your husband do it all? I ended up passing on that idea for our kitchen, but still holding out hope for a skylight the front bathroom. How crazy/hard was it to do?

Thank you everyone. My tiny kitchen is finally working for me. I didn't repaint the light cabs...just changed out the old, ugly white formica for the black tile. It made the cabs a bit warmer. The soffits and the door to the garage are also the same paint/glaze. But I did a plaster finish on the soffit/upper wall when I removed the plastic white bricks. The cabinet doors are not glass, they're actually plexiglass that I sprayed frosting on. I had a wood & wrought iron decorative wall piece I liked, so I laid it over the plexi, then sprayed the frosted spray paint. Then I used liquid leading for faux stained glass, where the wrought iron was. For fun, I glued a red glass gem on. I'm considering changing them to beadboard since some people seem to dislike them. I'm not in love with them, I'd prefer seeded glass, but I don't want to spend the $ for these cabinets. I'm going to repaint the light cabinets in a similar warm ivory color, but not sure if I'm going to glaze them again. The first paint job was done a couple years ago and I was in too big a hurry to do it right on some of them, the paint is chipping. I'd never match them, so they're going to be redone. Luckily my kitchen is postage stamp size, so it won't take too long.

So just like that, it seemed things were flying and we had to make decisions FAST. Like, lighting. We had been thinking about pendants over the peninsula, but thanks to the wonder of Google SketchUp, we realized this was too much vertical clutter with the dining room RIGHT THERE, presumably with some dangly light fixture . So frantically, I (we) picked out the most awesome dining room light and we decided to go with recessed lights over the peninsula instead. And then there was the issue of under/inside cabinet lights and electrical outlet placement. Oh my! We had some task lighting angled power strips that our contractor gave us, but we decided not to use them and go with regular outlets. I went low & horizontal, but kind of wish I hadn't. Whatevs. For under cabinet lights, we did more searching and ended up with Armacost LED puck lights both in and under the cabinets. The light over sink went to a light switch/outlet to left, the peninsula lights, main recessed lighting, under/in cabinet lights and dining room light all went to one bank of switches all on dimmers. That was just a lot of things to decide. Here you can see the wiring for the lighting and all the plumbing done, plus the insulation. And then, wow drywall! Dry wall and the framing for the pantry entry way Texturing was next - we have the old world or skip trowel type of texturing? Not sure what you call it. And then windows were in and the paint went up. After many, many test paints. Who knew it's so hard to pick out a gray? Ok, everyone. In the end, we went with everyone else and got Revere Pewter. The windows here came in wrong, the bottom of the single hung were not supposed to have grids. So those got reordered, no biggie. Here's the breaking through from the outside to make the windows! Finally the wall is open and the plastic is down! And you can see the tons of paint colors we tried. Living room windows are also in and more paint samples ... You can see where the GIANT built ins were by the paint. We could not have been more sick of tan at this point. Tan walls and tan ceilings were just a bit overkill. And so ends another installment of Kitchen Remodel Saga.