What fun to get to be the first one to say: beautiful! Well done! Congratulations on your warm, inviting, and very functional new kitchen.

BEAUTIFUL ! ! ! ! ! We too have been working on a DIY kitchen remodel for the past year which included a total gut of a 1950's kitchen that had never been remodeled. What an undertaking. I have gotten so many great ideas from this site. Thank you for sharing your beautiful kitchen.

You did a wonderful job! The "openness" seems to really fit your home.

I love the countertop...I've seen the product online, but never actually installed. It looks great! Are you happy with it so far? Would you mind sharing cost?

Love the new look, especially how the kitchen now opens to the DR area. Storage cabinet wall with micro at one end of the peninsula is a very clever idea. Did you do all the work-cabinets, floors, backsplash, counter-yourself?? My hat goes off to you-great job!!

I love it - truly love it. The look is simple,clean, warm, yet a little sophisticated without any frou-frou.

What else do I love: the Solatubes -- all that light!!, the elegant yet simple backsplash, the graceful faucet, the cookbook shelves, your warm-looking cabs and quietly beautiful countertops...

How do you like the induction range? And the floors?

Hi tikibar..

oh my gosh...you made it sound like it was going to look so simple and plain!

It's beautiful and very impressive!! And DIY?? I'm so jealous of your skills!

KA:)

Doesn't look at all 'un-fancy' to me! Very upscale looking. Really, a tremendous job and a wonderful change. The flooring and the ceiling/light fixture change make a huge difference, but I like the elegant simplicity of the cabinets, counter, and backsplash, too. The pulls are great.

Good job!

Very, very nice!!! Beautiful transformation! Enjoy your new kitchen.

How you must love it! Even more since it was DIY. What talent! Enjoy

Beautiful! Yours seems like the perfect situation for opening up the wall between the kitchen and dining.

Your countertops look so smooth and touchable. How do they compare to other solid surface or natural stone in texture?

Enjoy!

So beautiful! What a difference!

WOW ! You have really added a LOT of pizzaz ! I wasn't expecting so much from your intro but boy did you deliver. What a wonderful change and I bet the kids love the ordering as much as you guys love to deliver :) c

That is fantastic, what a transformation. I love the backsplash. Enjoy your wonderful new space.

Beautiful! Like an ugly duckling transforming into a swan! The backsplash is particularly subtle and elegant.

That's a ton of new storage you gained, and I love how you found a spot for the microwave/convection oven.

I'm off to google ecotop...

Really nice job! And congrats on the DIY! Love the counter and the backsplash. They look fabulous together. Enjoy your new space!!

Very nice-such wonderful colors.

WOW WOW WOW! My mom's kitchen setup is a mirror-image of yours (same era split-level) and I've been trying to convince her to open up the kitchen to the dining area... you bet I'll be bookmarking this! You should be proud of yourselves!

What a great job you did! I love your backsplash--besides being absolutely yummy, it looks super in your kitchen! Your new space is really warm and inviting, yet sleek and sophisticated!

Well done!

WOW-way to go! can you tell us more about ecotop? Did you install it yourself and was it easy?

Your kitchen is beautiful...I especially love the light that the solartubes provide, your backsplash, your dining room chandelier, and your paint color. Opening that wall was a great move! So practical. What color is on the dining room wall with the picture?
Awesome!

Wow-- here I was expecting a wee galley kitchen --

Y'all did FABULOUS! And by yourself? And are you still talking to one another?

GREAT CHOICES!

You know what my favorite kitchens are? DIY!

awesome job! congratulations. what a sense of pride you must feel. similar to having a baby, your own is most special.

When is the party?

What an amazing and professional looking transformation! Love your floor and countertop and your backsplash is very pretty. Very well done!!

Looking harder--that ceiling treatment looks like it was always there from the beginning, a feature designed by an architect. In fact, the whole room looks that way. It's so restrained it's a work of art. Love the use of black as a color design element and the contrast with the wood. Restrained good taste with a great result.

Love the transformation. Great job! Btw, I was wondering if you could tell me where you got your dining room chairs. I really like them!

Thanks!

Wonderful job! I think it looks very classy.

Great elements, induction, Eco, bamboo...nice.

Oh my goodness, I'm overwhelmed by all of your kind words! Thank you very much. I'll try to answer all of your questions the best I can:-)

DIY - We did get some help with the dining room wall & ceiling. Let the pros do the texturing, but my husband did the drywalling & mudding with some help from a friend that does construction. He installed the solartubes, can lights, flooring, cabinets, tore out the old pantry closet, sink, faucet, and fabricated the countertop w/ help from the same friend. I installed the backsplash, but he did the cutting for around the outlets & corners. I did all the painting as well.

Countertop - I have to be honest, I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love the warmth, softness of the texture, and that you can sand out injuries. Depending on what we've treated it with, it goes from a satin sheen to very matte. We are having some issues with the finish and it's requiring a lot of maintenance to keep it looking good. I'm hoping once I find the right finish it will take care of the watermarks,etc. It can be treated like wood or soapstone. We oil & buff it when we want it to look great, but it doesn't last long right now. Crossing my fingers to find the right product. This may be isolated to the black color, I'm not sure. I may give up & try and learn to live with the "patina"...I really really want to get to the point where I love it all the time. We bought a slab for about $2200 (w/tax), picked it up ourselves & fabricated it. Our friend had the right tools to help. Our bar overhang is a few inches short because we had just enough to do everything w/out seams, except the piece we put in the windowsill.

Induction Range - I love it! I entertain myself seeing how fast I can boil different amounts of water. We had to try out some different pans to find ones that didn't buzz the whole time.

Floors - The strand woven bamboo is great. It's really hard stuff, but you can get scratches in the finish itself. We are very happy with it and got a great deal from Cali Bamboo. We ordered over the phone & worked a deal on shipping too. I would buy from them again. We went with the lighter color because it doesn't show as much dirt or scratching if you get one. I tested colors by dropping our heaviest kitchen object on them from countertop level, and scratching rocks across it.

Paint - The lighter paint is BM Abingdon Putty. We have Providence Olive in our living room, and this was the next color over on the paint swatch. I love it! We also used it in the few areas we had left to paint in the kitchen. The light wasn't on in the dining room so it looks a little darker than it really is.

LOL - Yes, we are still talking to eachother. We are lucky that we tended to agree on most of the items so that helped. I also recommend a good supply of wine and dining out.

I'm still unsure about the barstools...like it's just a tad too much black. I'm thinking about doing something to the seat to jazz it up, like a cover in a different color, or some decorative painting. If you have seen a stool that would look great please let me know! These are great because the height is 27" so my little ones fit perfect right now. We already had the dining set so worked with those colors for our palette.

My favorite part of the kitchen is outside the window above the sink, the real reason we bought this house:-) It makes doing dishes bearable.

Thank you again!

Tiki

Congrats on your remodel - DIY????? that says a lot about you -
Excellent use of space, elements - function and form - LOVE it - are you in the biz?

A lovely transformation -

I have the Typhoon hood - very happy with it (4yrs)

Best to you

The dining room set we got about 6 years ago from Macy's. It's made by Shermag in Canada. You can customize how you want them, leg style, wood finish, seat color, etc. The chairs are very comfortable.
Oh my - no - not in the biz at all. My husband is just very handy and has an engineering background. I like to research things. We have a few friends in the biz we bounced ideas off of, and had help with some of the work. I poured over this forum, blogs, houzz...that's where I found the idea to put the microwave where it is.

The hood is great! We had an over range micro hood before, and when we went to take it out discovered it was just circulating air above the cabinets and wasn't installed correctly. No wonder it didn't work.

Huh - why do I have to change the subject line to post more than 1 follow-up response?

Beautiful - and inspiring! Your new space is gorgeous.

Love how light and airy it is now. The peninsula/storage area is awesome!

Are you serious? That is your view out of your window? OMG! How could you do anything but stare outside? It is gorgeous. Why bother to eat? or cook? that's nonsense.

That view is not nonsense.

Your k is fabulous and the transformation is outstanding.

But that view!

I LOVE what you've done! The transformation is beyond words. I especially like the way you opened it all up. I'm sorry about your counter frustrations, hope you get those figured out soon, especially with little ones. Where are you to have that kind of view? Just beautiful!

We are in Western WA, the view is of Puget Sound and part of the Olympic Peninsula. The big sink is great because now I can pile all the dishes in and just stare out the window instead:-) Now if we can just get the rest of the inside of the house to look great too.

That does not look the slightest bit DIY! It is elegant and sleek, and yet also warm. Your materials are great and how you used them. I love the ceiling and solar tube.

No matter how great we do our house, we will never have a view like yours. That is simply stunning!

As a fellow DIYer I gotta say I am impressed. It takes a lot of balls to take on a total kitchen remodel and tearing out a wall. You and your Husband do great work.
You should be very happy with yourselves and very proud of what you have accomplished.

How long did it take you (start to finish)? I'd love to hear the timeline.

My only sugestion would be to add some up lighting around the edge of the cove ceiling to highlight the cove/ceiling height at nighttime. At night time the ceiling will feel like its at the level of the recessed lights without it.
Amazing Job!

DIY_Mike

Thanks! We started at the end of April and were "almost" finished by 4th of July. We still have a few things left to do, like under cabinet lighting, replacing some of the cabinet doors. We have no trim around the one doorway or baseboards in the dining room because we are planning to do all new baseboards & interior doors later. My husband did take several days off work to work on it too. I am still trying to clean up the rest of the house that got neglected during the whole process. It seems neverending!

What kind of lighting are you thinking of for inside the cove? We had planned to just see how the lighting was at nighttime, and add bulbs to the solar tubes if needed. I imagine this will become more apparent once the days are shorter.