My Dream Kitchen - A Tour

Many have asked if the picture in my header is my kitchen.

It is mine.

We remodeled our kitchen a little over 5 years ago.

We designed and built this house 19 years ago and

had wanted to remodel the kitchen a few years before

we got around to it. 

To tell the truth, I was scared to death to live through

a remodel.  We had built and sold our whole lives

and had never lived in a house past 2 years and 9 months.

Now our children were at the age they didn't want

to move and we loved our neighborhood so we have

put down roots.

We kept toying with the idea but it wasn't until one

day my neighbor Mimi suggested that we meet with

her kitchen designer, Randy, that we jumped in with

both feet.

He gave us such wonderful drawings that we

decided we could do this!

Pardon the mess, had I known I was going to blog this "before"

photo, I would have had the kids clean up their snack.

This was in the era of the whitewashed maple.

Here is the view of the same corner.  We had a huge pantry

in that corner measuring 7x10 feet.  My husband said it

was so big I didn't know what was in there.  We took it

out and it changed the dimension of our kitchen.

Without adding any physical space we now had a huge kitchen.

You can see all of my beautiful goblets were still on display

in this corner.  I hated the desk as it always seemed messy

but I did love a place to store my over 200 cookbooks.

The desk was replaced with this fun

"kitchen gadget".

I had always wanted a fireplace in the kitchen and as

we went to the fireplace store my husband said, "What

about a pizza oven?"  Of course they didn't have

one but he came home and got on line and we had soon

ordered an Italian made pizza oven imported by

Mugnaini.

Andrea Mugnaini lives in California and imports these

wonderful ovens that can be installed in the inside of

your home or outside.  She offers classes on how to use

your oven and she even sponsors classes in Tuscany

several times a year.

We had the opportunity to go to Tuscany and take a week

long cooking class on cooking in this wood fired oven.

I will blog about that later.  It was such a fun trip

and we came home wanting to do more cooking classes

around the world (hasn't happened yet, but hopefully...)

Of all the things we did in our remodel, we love our

pizza oven the best.  We make pizza about 3 times

a month in it and it is the married kids most requested

meal.  We set up the ingredients around the bar and

it is make your own night.  We have served 70 pizzas

in one night for our church's lady's organization -

Relief Society.  Those women can eat!

I will blog about the pizza parties later too. 

It also houses my cookbooks, goblets and if you

can see through the metal grates, 

 my machine for

melting and dipping chocolates.

Here we have the upper cabinets emptied and down.

When I think of the dishes I gave away to "simplify"

not knowing I would become a tablescaper, I am

a little sick, but I sure gained storage space for more

dishes!

Here is the same view of that wall, now with separate

fridge and freezer and the smaller pantry.

This beautiful island opens on the back side (when you move

the chairs) and has tons of storage for my dishes.

I can thank our neighbor Keith for this beautiful island.

He came over to look at our plans and give us advice.

He said we didn't want to build the island as we had

planned and took us to see his and to show us all

of the storage on the backside of his.

He convinced us.  Keith is incredible at home design

and we love him for helping us make our kitchen better.

These beautiful Murano hand blown glass chandeliers imported

from Venice were ordered on line.

Click here - Gallery 802 to see them.

Having been to Venice, the prices there are outrageous,

but these chandeliers cost about the same as the

hand blown glass bowl I brought home.

They were so inexpensive - under $200 each that my

husband was sure they weren't UL rated, but they were

and they have been great.  I love having little pieces

of Italy in my Italianate kitchen.

This is an action picture of my son running to throw his

body against the sheet rock.  They had too much fun

in demolition mode!

So the kitchen went down to the studs.  Our 8x8 sliding

doors were moved.

This incredible baking center took the place of the

sliders.  Our kitchen designer made each piece

look like a freestanding piece of furniture.

My good friend Paula who painted the canvas in

the gazebo painted the design on this piece.

We have an incredible view to the mountains but had

a bank of 4 small windows to look out.  We had

been to a homeshow a few years earlier where they

had a curved glass wall of windows.  I suggested

that to the kitchen designer and he poo pooed

that idea.  The day this wall came out, he came

over and saw the stunning view and said he was

wrong.  I ran upstairs and found the picture of the

curved glass wall.  He quickly agreed.

So without structurally changing the house, we picked

up 3 more feet in the kitchen here with the curved

glass.  We got several bids.  One was twice the

amount, so it paid to get a couple of bids.

I don't have a picture, but this was a broom closet.

Now it houses the phone and mail center so no

one ever has to see the paper mess.

The middle drawer has ribbons and cellophane

for gift wrapping.

The bottom drawer has placemats and napkins.

This bank of hand painted lockers replaced the

back side of the broom closet and our back entry.

Oh, now that most of the kids are gone, these could

hold more dishes!

We added a kitchenette in the basement so we

could eat while remodeling.

  It had a dishwasher, fridge and microwave

that also baked.  We didn't add a stove top so for

nine months we used an electric wok.  Did you

know that you can boil spaghetti and cook hamburgers

in an electric wok?  It worked incredibly well.

Of course, we grill year round even in the snow,

so we didn't starve.

We did the main floor, kids baths, and upper hall

in that 9 months.  It took us a couple years to do

our bath and bedroom and the kids carpets (we knew

what mess we would be getting into).  I am so glad

that we did the remodel.  We love every bit of it.

In later posts I will show you more of the main

floor changes.  We went from contemporary to Old World

and although elegant it is very warm and welcoming.

This window is what provides the natural light

for my blogging photos.  We love round tables

and don't have anything but round in our home.

This will be where I will be doing many tablescapes

now that summer is ending.

It was a designer's dream project.  It was hard to live

through, but we are so glad we did it.

Hope you enjoyed your tour.

I will be posting this with

Susan

at

Between Naps On The Porch

for

Metamorphosis Monday.

I am also linking to Savvy Southern Style's

Before and After Party.