Our Kitchen

I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner today for the Home Tours: Kitchen. The kitchen is my favorite spot in the house and I needed a little extra motivation to get it cleaned up today anyway ;-) My husband is a home builder and we've built several houses. We've built several houses and he really gives me free rein of style. In February we just finished up our 5th house and moved in. We live in our house for 2 years and then put it up for sale and then build another. If there is something I don't like I only have to deal with it for 2 years :-) This is the smallest house we've built. We've slowly downsized from a 3500 sq ft house to this one, about 1855 sq ft. We opted to have only one dining area and then split the second dining area space into the kitchen, utility and a computer area behind the kitchen. This gave me a large enough kitchen (still smaller than our 3500 sq ft house though) and we're pretty pleased with the layout. We still haven't added hardware to the cabinets or even decorated it yet. Saving up for a larger vehicle because baby #3 is on the way so who knows when we will get around to doing that! However, I am usually on the lookout for kitchen decor, but haven't found anything that I just had to have yet. The cabinets are knotty alder. We've had white cabinets and stained both and we really like the stained look better. I have electrical outlets all above the cabinets that can be turned on at the light switch. This is great for decoration with lights & garland at Christmas time. I've had the outlets put in the last few houses and it's been great.  

Our pantry. Went with a chalk board door. Love this! It's nice to have to write messages on at birthday time too. The boys love writing on it but it does make a huge dusty mess! 

When we are building a house I spend HOURS looking through websites to get ideas. Each house has been a bit different. Two houses I've used green (one had a huge island and it was green beadboard and another had a green vent a hood and middle section where the stove was at) as an accent color to go with the stained cabinets. This time I decided on a black accent and bookmarked several pictures of vent a hood styles. My husband built exactly what I wanted, I think he did a fabulous job!! Then the painters did exactly what I was wanting as well. It's a rare thing to have something turn out exactly like you want ;-)  

There was supposed to be a walkway that went to the living room on the other side of the kitchen but I wanted to close that off to give more cabinet space. I also love a more closed kitchen. Having an open bar area on the end is about all I can do with an open design. Since we have to consider what is good for re-sale, open designs are still very popular.  

We've had the textured painting on the walls and ceiling for the last few houses, we really love the look. We usually do beams as well and he put 3 in through the length of the kitchen and dining area.  

Lights are another favorite of mine to pick out. Sadly I'm drawn to the most ornate and expensive lights. We built this house on the cheap so I spend much time online looking at what I wanted and finding lights on clearance. I wanted a crystal chandelier above the bar. I love this light (I think the electricians hung it a bit high though).

We went with tile for the kitchen as well to save money. We've had wood floors in the last 3 houses but it's nice to have tile again. It doesn't show dirt or water spots as bad. I think I prefer the lighter floor for stained cabinets. I do still like wood floors for white cabinets though.