Tour of My Dream Kitchen

 Our kitchen is done, (though I do still have some things I would like to make to decorate it) and I feel super blessed! The kitchen is used very often in our house as we like to make pretty much all our meals from scratch plus we can and bake, make cheese and lots of other sorts of food prep that aren't considered normal anymore. We also make things such as deodorant, laundry soap and various craft projects which we like to do in the kitchen. So basically the kitchen is our main living area.

  I really was very happy in our last house but one thing that I did dream about occasionally was a bigger kitchen. Our kitchen was on the small side and not all that pretty (though it wasn't bad) but we made it work however occasionally I would dream about something nicer. Now I have that something nicer. I have truly been blessed with a dream kitchen.

Here is the tour.....

 The North wall of the kitchen has the fridge, the cupboards with glass doors where we can keep some pretty dishes and a counter top area that we like to use for baking. We choose stainless steel appliances because we think they look nice but I do find that they do get fingerprint on them very easily. Oh well.

view from the dining room

 One of the things that I had dreamed about, stemming from way back when I cleaned house for others when I was a teen, was having a kitchen with two sinks. We are finding this to be very handy and think we will find it even more so when we are bringing in large amounts of harvest to process. The island sink has just one bowl and the other one has two.

  An island was another item on my dream kitchen list. I had an island in one of our past homes and I really liked the way that kitchen worked.  I really love how spacious this is and how a bunch of people can be in it but yet we don't get in each other's way.

  A sink with a drainboard was an item on my dream kitchen list which many people found funny. "You want what?" This is in place of having a dishwasher which a lot of other people don't understand. We have had several dishwashers in the last couple of houses - one of them was a nice stainless steel one that we bought brand new - but none of them have worked very well. I don't want to use normal dishwasher soap because of the bad things in it so that may have led to the problem. But truly most people I know either fully rinse all their dishes ahead of time (which takes basically as much time as washing dishes) or they have issues with their dishwasher - with having to rewash a lot or with cloudy glasses or whatever. I just got tired of dealing with that and have found our new hand washing system to work MUCH better for us anyway.

   A sink with a drainboard was not such a simple item to find. In fact it was pretty hard. I talked to our plumber about it and he didn't even know what I was talking about so he had me talk to his wholesaler who he said could find anything. She acted like she hadn't heard of sinks with drainboards either but then did finally find one but it was super expensive (like $2000) and was really industrial looking. If we hadn't wanted an undermount sink it would have been easier but we did want an undermount. I finally found this sink on Amazon. It was more industrial than I had originally wanted but it would work. It still cost a bit at around $500 but much better than the other price we were quoted.

  A kitchen definitely is the most expensive room in the home with the cabinets, sinks, counters, appliances and such. Thankfully we will use it a lot and hopefully use it to help us save money.

 When I was looking at home pictures on Pinterest and various other sites I found myself drawn over and over again to rooms with lanterns. I decided I would like a lantern light fixture over the island. I found that when I went to shop for them that they weren't so very easy to find. Then I started looking at outdoor lighting and there were more lanterns there but still not a lot of hanging ones. Also the ones that I liked tended to be several hundred dollars. I did finally find this one for less than a hundred and though it wasn't what I had first envisioned I liked it. We were able to get a matching light fixture for over the sink. They have little metal leaves on them that I think are pretty.

 One of the things I wanted for my dream kitchen was cabinets that went all the way to the ceiling. I think it is kind of senseless to waste all the good storage space by having just open space above the cabinets. You can of course use that space for decorating but I have found that things can get really dusty and gross pretty fast and I don't like cleaning up there all the much so high cabinets made more sense to me. I do have to use a step stool for the top shelves but I just put things that I don't use all that often up there. It works fine.

View from the entry from the garage.

 We choose Maple cabinets with a Brandywine finish. I liked the really simple style of doors (and found out that simple cabinet doors tend to cost more that the ones cut with all sorts of groves and such). We choose to have all solid wood cabinets (No pressed board that can put out bad fumes and fall apart in a few years) that did cost more but I think it was worth it for how much better it will last. Our cabinets have soft close doors which I think it pretty standard now (and pretty nice) but we didn't get many other bells or whistles. We did get a tray divider in one cupboard and a drawer divider for one drawer.

 I had seen a picture in a magazine (back when we were designing our house) of a kitchen with a long counter-top with three windows like these above them. I showed it to Ken and he really liked it. We did find out that the round windows end up (when you count in trim and all) quite a lot more but Ken thought it was worth it. In the picture above Ken was working outside getting the siding on around those windows.

 Because the windows are in a bump-out we have an extra big window ledge. I bought a piece of knotty alder ( to match the window trim - we had a hard time decided whether we should have put counter top there, maple to match the cabinets, oak to match the floor or knotty alder to match the window frames) and Ken installed it and I varnished it with a bunch of coats of Spar varnish. I love the way it looks and love being able to have a bunch of plants in my kitchen.

We did decide to have a pull out trash area in one of the cabinets. I do like having the trash and a recycling bin very handy but yet out of sight.

We have two appliance garages and I am quite fond of them. I don't care for the looks of the little appliances very much but like it that they can be easily accessible but stay out of sight in the appliance garages.

 This is our silverware tray divider. I debated on spending extra for this but am glad we did. I like they way I can fit so much more in this than I could using the plastic trays.

 I do love the view that I can enjoy while I wash dishes. It is especially beautiful now that everything is greening up.

  I have always thought it would be fun to have a kitchen decorated with cobalt blue and white. I love those colors. In the kitchens I have had so far that color scheme didn't work so well (the last two houses have had green counters) so I am pretty excited to be able to use it here.

We have a couple of these bowls that were wedding gifts. We did get a few things in this color scheme for our wedding but most have broken (a cake pan and a couple more bowls like this) or worn out (hot pads and towels) but we are still enjoying these bowls.

 The little planted on the window sill was a gift from many years ago from my friend Becky. The box was made by one of the kids and painted by me.

 I recently got some blue checked fabric from a friend and had fun adding some little touches of blue and white with that.

 Our last cod liver oil came in a lovely blue bottle. A Juneberry blossom is looking lovely in it. The little doily I made a long time ago.

  These bowls are a fairly recent find at an antique store. We actually needed some more bowls and I was so delighted to find these. I think they are so pretty (I love the color!) and they also have fun patriotic pictures on them. The one is of George Washington at Mt Vernon and the other is Betsy Ross and the flag.

 Last summer the kids and I had fun make some pottery and I painted several pieces blue. My friend Emily gave my the pretty white bowl with blue flowers on it - something she had picked up in India. On the lower shelf the little blue bowl was one we bought while in the Florida Keys at a potter's place. The big bowl was made locally. The next pot I picked up second hand. I really like hand made pottery.

  The little blue and white handle-less tea cup in the picture below was a gift from Aaron - he purchased it when visiting the Como zoo a while back.

 I think it would be fun to make a blue and white rag rug to stand on by the sink. I would also like to trim some of my towels in blue and white and fix up some of my hotpads to go with the blue and white theme. I think I want to write out some verses to hang on the walls with blue flowers drawn around them as well but for the most part my kitchen is done and I do feel super blessed.