Finished Kitchen

 I think I have finally finished everything I intended to change in this kitchen. Here is an after pic:

This is a before pic when we moved in almost two years ago:

It looks so different! I have nothing against the maple cabinets, but everything in the kitchen seemed so orangey before--the cabinets, the floor tile, the counters. Now it has some character and some contrast. Contrast is the key to good design.

I love our new faucet. It is a Delta Trinsic faucet. Here's a closer shot:

And the cabinet knobs--I consider them a work of art. They are good quality, heavy knobs. I bought them at Gliderite Hardware online. They are the square deco knobs in satin nickel. A pack of 10 was only $16.95. I bought 3 packs to do my whole kitchen. What a bargain. Here are some closeups of the knobs:

And I love my drum pendant light over the island. It was only $44 at wayfair.com. Alas, I see it is now sold out. It was the Savannah drum pendant. I ordered it in black and then put the ribbon on myself (1 1/2" wide) with double-stick tape.  I like how it has four 60-watt bulbs. I like bright light. Here's a closeup:

I had originally frosted the glass in the cabinets myself, but then I decided to remove it. I felt like my traditional kitchen didn't match the more contemporary frosted glass. Here it is when the cabinets were frosted:

Who knows? I may eventually frost them again. Maybe in a more traditional pattern. I like how I can just change it when I want to. That's the bad thing about buying frosted glass online that's already done in a pattern: you can't change it yourself when you want to. I know myself, and I knew I would eventually want to change the pattern, so I just bought clear glass from Lowe's (you tell them the measurements, and they cut it to size), and then I frosted it buy tracing a square onto contact paper, putting the contact paper on the glass, then rolling on artist's matte medium from a craft store. I used a small, smooth roller to roll it on. 

I disliked the arched doors of the cabinets when we moved in, so I ordered all new upper doors from barkerdoor.com. I ordered the Seattle style in the paint-grade wood (cheapest option), which most closely matched the style of the lower doors on our cabinets. Barker Door will ship to the US and Canada. I think I paid close to $200 for the shipping, but the doors will still pretty inexpensive, when you consider how much all new doors for a kitchen would cost. The doors are good quality, and I would order from them again. 

As you can see, we removed that wooden valance thingie over the sink and just extended the crown moulding on the cabinets around to the wall. It really made the kitchen much lighter since more light could enter in. 

The valance is from overstock.com. It was just a scalloped turquoise and white valance when I received it, so evened it out on the bottom and added a satin black ribbon to the bottom for trim. I attached it with velcro. 

I used Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations in the color black to do all my perimeter cabinets. Then I bought another kit in Quilter's White to do the island. I used the glaze on the island but not on the black cabinets. I really like how the island turned out. Glazing cabinets is so easy and fun (and this was the first time I had ever used glaze) that I wish I could do it over and over again. The Quilter's White is actually a cream color. 

You can really see how well the mouldings we added on the end cabinets turned out from these pictures. It gives the cabinets so much more depth and dimension. 

The backsplash tile was the chiaro subway/brick tile in the 2" x 4" size from Lowe's (although I've seen the same tile at Home Depot, we just happened to have a Lowe's gift card). We bought the grout in the color straw (brand Mapei) from Lowe's. It's a much better alternative to white. We did an accent row of tile in the Mediterranean mosaic glass and stone tile from Floor and Decor Outlets. Here's the link: http://www.flooranddecoroutlets.com/s13104450.html. My husband did a great job on it!

Thanks to Tropical Storm Debby, we had a leak in our kitchen window, so we had to rip out our old shelf over the sink, which was wood, and we replaced it with this. It's a marble shelf from Home Depot:

I really like the EAT letters over the doorway. I got the idea when I saw them on this blog: http://www.leahmariev.com/2012/04/01/diy-kitchen-decor-wall-letters/.  Here are her letters:

 I just really like the pattern, and I tried to replicate her letters, but mine are a little different. I bought the letters from a crafts store (Michael's has them, so does AC Moore), then I also bought a stencil to do the edges of the letters. I bought cheap craft paint in Teal (.69 cents each) to do them. I already had white paint on hand. Here are mine:

Here are some afters of the kitchen. I think it looks great! 

The granite on the island is golden fantasy with an ogee edge, and the granite on the perimeter is delicatus cream with an eased edge. Here is the delicatus before we did the backsplash: