Very nice kitchen! Love your explanations and descriptions, too!

Granite is yummy as are your cherry cabs. :)

More goodies from the range wall

Ginormous beautiful blue oven

Pots and pans next to range

Extenda vent on MW

Wusthoff knife block (Amazon)

Gratuitous shots of other rooms

Laundry/mud room before

After
Walnut gel stain on doors. Still need to tile the floor.

Dining room

Don't really have a before but the back wall was really cheap ugly paneling. Rug is probably too contemporary for the furniture which was my MIL's but we both liked it so we're happy. Back wall in DR is cedar key, rest is pale oak.

Built-in book case on the back side of the range wall. We had a piece of granite cut and added that since we had it off the wall during the demo anyway.

Family room. It's really nice picture pane paneling, hand made in 3 dimensions but had been painted cream with hunter green trim. Would have been too dark had it been left as wood. Now in Cedar Key

Before

Hard to see here but fireplace doors were brass, DH repainted them black

Opposite wall

Did the entry way as well but can't seem to find pics right now.

If anyone is interested in the process of building the cabs, just search on my user name, I did do several posts while we were working on it.

Hope you enjoy!

What a difference. It's a beautiful space. And we all do things that work best for our lives and our homes and your space is great. Do you mind if I gush over your counters because they are absolutely stunning! I can't stop looking at them. It seems that they work well with your fireplace brick as well. And I like your dining room rug because it seems to bring the lines and colours of your counter into the space.

"2. Would have considered induction but DH didn't want to get new pots/pans and spend the extra $$ so I'm fine with the smooth top. Big improvement over the previous coils!"

You must be in a 'honeymoon' fog.
This is something I do consider crazy, because I have used a Ceran top JennAir range after coils. It is less responsive than coils and a pure pain to clean. Induction is incredibly better than both in every respect-- night and day. Pots and pans are talked about in the Appliance forum with reasonably priced options listed. The price is cheap for high quality all the way to expensive. deBuyer carbon are some of the very reasonably priced high quality pans I have found. Good luck.

Wow, there are so many beautiful improvements, congratulations and thank you for the fabulous reveal! I especially like the choices you made on the big three - your floors, cabinets, and counter tops. The re-decorated fireplace and adjacent shelves are nicely done, too!

"You must be in a 'honeymoon' fog.
This is something I do consider crazy, because I have used a Ceran top JennAir range after coils"

A 15 year honeymoon. Sometimes successful marriages are about the art of compromise.

I think you did a great job. I can appreciate how you and hubby worked together on making decisions. As you obsessed over some decisions, he was easily satisfied.

Those LG products are very appealing, especially the blue interior of oven, and the purple tins in d/w. I too ended up with a range, and my first ever OTR MW, to make he most of space, and moved the frige for same reason.

enjoy

Thanks bookworm. We love the kitchen, we fixed all the things that really bugged me when I cook and it's so much more functional and has so much more storage{{gwi:807}}. We're not broke and we still like each other. All very important. Looking back at the thread I do see that I kind of focused on the details which lots of people ask about but didn't get many good shots showing a little more perspective, so I might try to add some of those. Harder to get though since since it's only about 10x10. You can only get just so far away. :-)

Do have a couple of gratuitous food shots from the "kitchen warming party"

Sundried tomato palmiers

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Phyllo prosciutto wrapped asparagus (forgot to take a shot after cooked but really good and really pretty)

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Caprese skewers

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Neighborhood came over enjoyed the food and oohh'd and ahh'd over the kitchen. In our 1980's neighborhood, this kitchen is an overachiever vs. on this forum where it's dwarfed by its bigger relatives.

This post was edited by lucas_tx on Fri, Nov 1, 13 at 19:23

What a nice transformation! I lived in Texas in the 80s, and I remember the houses built with the picture-frame paneling and brick fireplaces were so dark. Your paint makes it look more airy and interesting, and the fireplace is so inviting instead of disappearing. I really like the rug with the dining room set! It probably "goes" better with the breakfast room set, but it brings a contemporary touch to the more traditional. That's a wonderful clock, too :)

Beautiful, beautiful cabinets. I agree with you on the pull-out faucet, I find them easier to use and less obtrusive. Do you like it mounted on the side? I also like a soap bottle; sometimes it's easier to move the soap to the pot than vice versa!

The new artwork over the fireplace references the new counters!

Did you save some leftovers from the Kitchen Warming Party for us?

Thanks BP. That's actually a thought, move that rug to the nook if its not too big. We're actually debating whether to put a rug there.

The clock was DH's gift to his parents for their 50th anniversary, so it's very special.

The art over the fireplace was custom done, his normal stuff is either 3 or 5 panels, neither of which worked for the space, so since we ordered the 4 panel, we also sent paint chips and got the custom colors as well. Very reasonable price and we love it. His name is Jon Allen his studio is Statements 2000 if anyone else likes metal wall art.

And yes we like the faucet where it is. Keeps it from being right in the middle of the opening but it's long enough you can reach the entire sink with it.

This post was edited by lucas_tx on Fri, Nov 1, 13 at 9:05

Wow, it looks awesome! At first when I looked at the photos I didn't "get" it but as I looked more and more I saw how thoughtfully you opened everything up and really made the space work for you. Lovely! I would love to have that view out over the nook every day.

Congratulations on an absolutely beautiful space that works for you. Love your cabinets and counters. Very, very pretty. Your party guests must have enjoyed that great meal! You have caused all your neighbors to go home and dream of the wonderful spaces they could have. Again, beautiful space.

I'll say an overachiever! This is such a great redo, so many things to love and perfect for your house.
I must say, I do not care for most backsplashes, however your choice in your kitchen is beautiful! Really good with the granite and cherry. The cabinets are gorgeous!
It's great to see all the other rooms in the house, big improvements all around.
I did love your old cabinet doors though, could you use them for wall paneling in a library...really. Did you re-purpose?
Enjoy all your hard work!

Whoa! Just getting the striped wallpaper down must have made a big difference for starters.

But what a great redo and it looks much more user friendly not to mention beautiful! Love the view through the new nook windows... so much nicer and it feels like you can 'breathe' now that those short uppers are gone. Really beautiful, enjoy!

Nice transformation....love your granite! Enjoy your new space!

Ooh, lovely! lovely! Drop dead gorgeous counters. Love the cabinets too. Thank you for all the details and the shots of your other rooms too. So many of your choices are in my list-cherry cabinets, a bi-level peninsula. I am sure I will bug you more when I get going on my kitchen.
A OT question-is the bookcase flanking the fireplace 'resting' on the hearth? I have a full room width hearth and have been telling DH that we can have a bookcase end at the hearth and not have to break down the hearth.

Thanks all. We worked very hard to recycle everything we could. The old cabs were site built and we couldn't get them out in one piece but the doors and all the appliances as well as old light fixtures etc. Went to H4H.

The whole renovation looks like it was a lot of work with a huge payoff. The rooms look so different from the "before" that it took a bit of scrolling back & forth to truly appreciate all the changes you made. You do have a before dining room pic (mid reno). What a change! I love how you framed the new wall to the DR. I also thought the beadboard in your breakfast area was new. It looks great painted. Your new dining room & breakfast room are fresh & lovely. Love the new bookcase with the granite shelf.
The cherry cabinets with the crown molding are beautiful. The cherry looks great with your backsplash & your stainless appliances.
Great storage! I know I'd still find something to put in the back of the 30" deep cabinet above the frig.
I think I must have your sundried tomato palmier recipe. What temp do you cook the phyllo prosciutto asparagus rolls? Your reveal made me hungry.
Congratulations & enjoy your new kitchen and dining areas!

Sorry missed the bookcase question. Yes it sits directly on the hearth. It was already there and we just left it as is during the reno. The other book case where we added the granite was there but we took it out during the reno, put the hardwood under it and then cut it down so it would still meet up properly with all the trim to right of it. The wall behind it was paneled as well and we removed a big fur down that hung down between the living room and nook so had to redo that wall. (It looked like a beam but wasn't was just decorative and I wanted to blend the two spaces together).

I don't have any pics but there was a pony wall between the nook and living room on the window side with the wood spindles going to the ceiling. We took that out and left just those very small walls, partly to define the nook but also for practical reasons. If you've never considered what's involved in making an open space where there was not one before, one of the issues is where to put electrical outlets and light switches. Since that nook is on an exterior wall, we did not want to have to move the outlets to that wall and the light switches would have had to move to other walls, meaning a lot of new wire would have to be run and so forth. So we elected to do those small walls on each end, and we like the look a lot.

On the dining room, yes there is the reno picture but at that point we've already pulled down the paneling. The LR paneling is really nice constructed on site stuff that DR.... ugh it was awful, cheap, plasticy looking stuff. Not sure why they did that, they did use a lot of wood in the house and for the most part it's all nice stuff.

On the food, the asparagus is at 450 for 10 mins.
On the tomatoes, I could look at the recipe but it's one of this things you can do your own thing. I kind of use recipes to get ideas and then wing it based on what I like and/or have on hand. One sheet of puff pastry. Spread with the filling which was like some olive oil, sundried tomatoes, garlic, good olives, that kind of thing. Food process but leave chunky. Roll to the middle from the sides. Refrigerate till ready (did it the night before). Slice and bake. Thicker puff pasty takes longer, that one was like 400 for 20 mins or something like that.

The biggest hit which I failed to photograph was rice crackers topped with wasabi mayo, a small slice of teriyaki marinated then grilled flat iron steak (recipe uses flank steak but I like flat irons for everything) topped with a dab of the wasabi mayo and some chopped up fresh chives.

And speaking of having on hand, one of those doors in the utility hall is a huge under stair walk in pantry, in case anyone is wondering why we didn't do any kind of pantry pull outs in the kitchen. We have canisters, spices, stuff like that in the uppers to the left of the MW but everything else lives in the pantry.

Can you tell more about your experience with Barker Cabinets? Specifically:
- Did you finish them yourself?
- How was the ordering process, delivery, etc.?
- How was the assembly, fit, and finish?

Thanks,

Andy.

Very beautiful. Your layout is awesome.

The granite goes really well with the cabinets.

Congratulations on your beautiful remodel! What a relief it must be to be done. Your counters are gorgeous and I love your bs. Looks like you have a ton of usable storage.

Wow - very nice. The counter is especially lovely with your cabs. I like all the details behind the decisions you made...and you and DH still like each other!

wow! your kitchen is awesome. i am hoping to redo mine someday and i am planning on keeping my normal stove and otr micro so i don't think you are crazy at all! i also like the corner sink in your kitchen, it looks cool and i love the faucet on the diagonal? instead of the usual top of the sink in the middle.
love the oven too. it looks like the pricey pro ovens. how do you like it? is the same width as your old one? i haven't seen one like it.

Finally!! I've been waiting for your final reveal! Thank you for posting all the before and after shots and why you did certain things - I love seeing that process, and it was also interesting to see where you compromised with each other. I'm not sure what my favorite things are, since I see so many things I love...but seeing your cherry cabinets again - and in the fully finished space - is making me seriously consider doing the Barker cherry instead of maple - darn you!

I really hope you enjoy the new space - you certainly worked hard for it! Thanks again for posting all your install steps and your reveal!

Attached is pic of how the bookcase sits on the hearth. I guess there could have been a matching one on the right side, this one just sits on the brick at the bottom and next to it on the side.

Ardcp-the range is a 30" standard width. We actually had a 36" downdraft cooktop before, l(ike a Jennair but it was Whirlpool) with the grill. But the grills don't really get very hot and the downdraft consumes a huge amount of space under the cooktop, so I wasn't sold on that. I love the range, cooktop and both ovens and went specifically with the LG's because that range had everything I wanted. Sadly I think it's discontinued now but they might have something similar. To me it looks great but wasn't too pricey, a little over $2K I think and has great dual convention, a really nice roller rack, a split rack (the one pictured in the drawer, I have used it though and it's really cool), etc.

Neitsdelf-We started out looking at Ikea but would have had to do a lot of customization to fit that corner sink. And their uppers are only 30 or 39 and like Goldilocks, I wanted 37". So that's what attracted us to Barker, the ability to size exactly how we wanted them. They had all the great high dollar hardware included and we loved that too.

We got the prefinished clear varnish. It added about $2k to the total cost if I remember right, but we just felt like it was A) so much work to do ourselves and B) the "factory finish" would hold up so much better, so we bit the bullet. That did make them about double the price of Ikea because of course theirs are finished. We could have gotten by for less had we not put fillers next to the applicances, not used the DW cab, stuff like that, but we are happy we put all that in as it now looks very finished.

We got the clear varnish. He did not have the medium stain at the time, we might have considered that, but definitely did not want painted.

If you search the forum for posts from me, I tried to publish some 'How my Barker kitchen is coming along" posts and you should be able to see how it went.

They arrived in flawless condition. One of the big fridge panels had a scratch and two pieces (one of the fridge sides and one of the fillers) were warped enough that it was easily noticeable. So 3 issues out of about 9 million pieces. I took pics and sent to Chad and he immediately said, let me know if you want them replaced. I really felt bad about that because I hated to waste all that wood. The scratch ended up in a non visible place and we put the warped pieces on the ground and put weights on them and by the time we were ready to install they were fine when we pulled them up close to their neighbors.

There were a couple of design improvements that could have been made in a couple of the cabs. We used the cab with a cut out for the MW and the vent the hole was almost too big. Probably would just use a regular upper if I had it to do over but the best part of working with Chad is if you tell him something like that, he's very interested. Asked for pics, specs for the MW, etc. trying to understand how to make it work better. We really enjoyed working with him.

Would definitely do it again and DH, I and my 80 year old dad did the assembly and DH and I installed them all in our very slanted 1980's slab house without much trouble. DH cut all the miters for the crown, his first time and we were thrilled with how that turned out (We did practice on some Styrofoam stuff from Lowes first :-)

Hope that helps.

Thank KB Spider. We started poking holes in soffits and looking around to see what was load bearing and what wasn't over the Christmas holidays so we certainly took our time. But we've been cooking in it for probably six months, just had to get the counters and backsplash squared away and then I was super busy at work, so the reveal had to wait. The party was the impetus to take more pics and get it done.

i think the changes around the windows are brilliant and make the kitchen really shine. love the blue from the range too. and the granite is stunning. your skewers look so delish! congrats on a wonderful job!

Thank you so much, lucas_tx. The picture is great!

I have to say that your cherry cabinets are already deepening and becoming richer in color from when you first posted! Great job, wonderful kitchen.

Forgot to say on the shop finished Barker cabs, except for the aforementioned one piece that was scratched, the spray job was awesome, no drips, flaws anything like that. And like I said, we've had the appliances in and been cooking in there for 6 months or so and they just wipe off beautifully when stuff does drip down them.

Now that stainless steel DW, that's another story. Have to wipe it regularly with the alcohol water mix because of fingerprints, really miss my black one in that respect but unfortunately most of the better DWs now only come in SS. Anyway, it's easy to get it looking good and it does look nice when it's not smudgy.

Sorry one last thing about finish on Barker. If you get the finished, they clear coat the drawers as part of the price. If not you have to do it which is even more work but I think I have seen somewhere (here or on his forum? don't remember) that you can ask to have the drawer interiors sprayed even if you choose do the doors and drawer fronts yourself. Don't know about the cost on that. But worth looking into. We love the finish on the inside of our drawers and don't even have any liners in them because they look so great as is.

I really enjoyed reading your reveal. Read it on my iPad this morning lazing in bed and pored over it for a good 1/2 hour. It was more engaging than a book, lol. I totally LOVE your new kitchen, and this is one of the best reveals I've seen.

Enjoyed reading the goals you had for the new kitchen, seeing how all your choices came together, the peeks inside your drawers and doors, and reading about the things you decided that others might consider crazy. Not crazy at all! The whole point of doing the research is to consider the alternatives and then choose what works for YOU. While I might not have made all those same decisions, you wouldn't have made the ones I chose either. That's rather the point, right? You don't live in my kitchen and I don't live in yours, LOL. There is something very freeing about deciding what works for you and just going regardless of trends. And I totally get where you're coming from on the slide in range with glass top. I've had a glass top range in the past and really liked it. Not everyone needs or wants a spendy induction or gas range so I say good for you!!

Things I particularly admire: The new layout moving the fridge wall and getting a wider opening. The great new views from your sink and peninsula area -- what a difference that makes. Your drop-dead gorgeous cabinets! Your lovely granite. Drawers and the use of space -- the mostly 4-drawer bases without a lot of stacking was a wise choice. The new fireplace wall (wow, what a difference the black paint makes). And a small thing, but I like that you carried the toekick past the dishwasher, it looks really nice.

Great job. Enjoy your new kitchen and may it bring you many years of new and happy memories!

Toekick on the DW...velcroed in place. Thanks GW. Would never have thought of that on our own!

What a beautiful job! The backsplash tile and counters go so well together. Loved reading your explanation of the changes you made and seeing each before/after together.

Lucas - Wow- Love what you did especially opening up the area around the sink for a better view and improved prep area.
Love you tile choice as well.
I might have missed it - how wide is your sink cabinet with the 2 trash/recycle bins inside.
I missed the idea of velcro the toekick - I had the GC just hook the wood to the retention bars - but without the rubber, the noise level increases - so I might give that a try - thanks! When you have a chance - can you post a picture of the finished toe kick?
Congratulations!

PS Love the KAW pictures as well!

Thanks dee!

A2, if you look at the very top where I edited, you can see the DW with the toe kick. I guess I need to put that photo in the place where the non finished version is.

That sink cab is 40" which explains why they both fit so easily in there. That made it easy to fit that great big sink as well. The size was determined by the angled area and thenthere are 2 filler strips on each side, one of which is mitered over the other one to allow the cabinet runs to make those 45 degree turns.

I know this thread is over 2 months old but I wanted to add my sincere thank you for this reveal. I am about 2 days away from placing our order for the exact same cabinets, cherry-clear finish-Shaker style doors, from Barker and it is so awesome to see how beautiful my choices will be. I have been scouring the internet doing research on kitchen cabinets for several months and settled on Barker for exactly the same reasons you did. Your kitchen is beautiful and I can't wait to do a similar reveal of my beautiful Barker kitchen!!

I hope you can answer this for me. I just love your cabinets they are so like the ones I had envisioned. I have been discussing with Chad as my kitchen cabinet layout is complicated. I also have a 45 degree angle and am concerned that when I miter the finished fillers I will destroy the conversion varnish finish on the edges.

It would really help if you could tell me how you created the 45 degree filler and if you needed to touch up the finish.

Thanks

Natural cherry cabinets, acacia hardwood floors, and copper canyon granite.

This thread had been the tipping point. I want the Bakers!. Placing that sample order.

Katschilling, your layout is strikingly similar to what I'm looking for the area from the range all the way around to the peninsula. Would you be willing to share more details about your layout and comment on how it's working for you?

Super late to the party here, but so happy this thread popped up. What a beautiful, thoughtful kitchen!

We've been moving back and forth between some kind of stained maple and natural cherry and we agreed yesterday on natural cherry. (my first choice). And we're placing order today or tomorrow. :)