The final product.

I am sorry it has taken me so long to get these pictures posted. It took me a little while to settle in to the kitchen, to realize that it was done, and that it was mine. I have spent so long planning and wishing for a kitchen like this, that it surprised me how mixed my emotions would be when I was done. Obviously, I love it and am so happy and thankful that we were able to do it, but it took a little getting used to!

Editor's note: blogger was being weird, so this post didn't come out in exactly the order that I wanted it to. Hopefully you can get a good image in your mind of what the kitchen actually looks like!

Before

After (without backsplash or flooring)
John was the one who had the awesome idea to switch our peninsula from one wall to the other. It really opens up the kitchen and makes it feel much bigger. Our first attempt at planning was at IKEA, and it was the helper there that suggested we have a separate cooktop and range, and we've been really happy with that. 

After, with backsplash. I picked up one of these tiles at Home Depot and said
"That's it. That's what I want, I don't want to look anymore." This is one of the
things I can't believe because it looks like the kitchens I was drooling
over on pinterest, and now it's mine!

Flooring, that goes into the living room and down the hall.
This really made the house seem huge!

New grown up kitchen table with 6 chairs. I loved the craftsman style of the chairs and the color of the table with the flooring. One the wall is our "kitchen warming" picture from Gramma. I fell in love with the colors of the leaves on the birch trees when I saw it at Pier One. I really wanted to make sure that I decorated it with grown up, connected touches (as opposed to the on sale, dorm decorating stuff I usually by from Target!) I am really happy with how all of the colors came together. 

We had a holiday open house and invited people over to have some Christmas cookies and to see the kitchen. It was so nice to have everyone there, for them to be so excited and shocked at how it came out!

Pretty much nothing in our house would be as nice as it is without Aunt Judy. :)

Owen having fun with Mr. Grow. (This picture also shows how the flooring goes into the living room and down the hall. We also got a new rug for the living room.)

Bake Off cookies! (This also shows our pewter quartz counters!)

  

 

Owen took a break from partying to have a bottle with Gramma and Caleb.

Love Teri so much. She is always so interested and helpful and was so sweet to come by.

It turned into quite a party! Owen had fun on the carpet with everyone.

These are some other pics of getting the kitchen put back together. 

One of the perks of having a cooktop is that I have really deep drawers underneath it. I can actually put away my pots and pans now!

I was so excited when I could boil a pot of water in 5-7 minutes as opposed to 20 minutes like before. 

 Owen loves exploring in the kitchen. :)

Again, I can't believe it is actually ours! Come on over for dinner sometime. :)