Almost Finished Kitchen

Here's a glimpse of my kitchen, almost finished and getting a little "festive" for Christmas! (Please ignored the dishes in the sink!) The contractor still needs to return and finish things, adding some trim around the windows, a cabinet door or two, paint touch-up, but I'm content to ignore those things for now, because I figure I don't have to pay some of the bills until it's all done!

One of my favorite parts is the lighting! True, maybe it would have been nice to be put in recessed lights in the ceiling. . . but not at the cost involved! But I do love the lighted cabinets I added above the stove! And really like the under-cabinet lights as well.

The cabinet immediately above the stove is waiting for the correct sized doors to arrive. . . . someday. And to the right, you can see our new refrigerator! I didn't intend to replace any of our appliances, but ours was almost 14 years old, and there was this really good Black Friday sale at Lowes. That, combined with a North Dakota refrigerator rebate meant I got a brand new stainless steel, larger, refrigerator with a water filter for about $800! I'm particular fond of the fact that food is not freezing in the bottom drawers of the refrigerator, and the drawers don't fall out when I pull them open.

I'm putting some of my Snow Village pieces in the lighted cabinets for now. And the lights have dimmer switches as well!

Some close-ups:







I added a fairly dramatic track light above the sink. I really like a lot of light to see what I'm doing in the sink. It makes it less likely that my hands will wander into the garbage disposal like in that particularly gruesome Stephen King short story I read some time ago. I think a dimmer switch might have been nice. . .

And you get to see my black sink again too! I never would have guessed how much fun it is to have a black sink! It makes no sense, but I really like it.

What does make sense is having the kitchen aid mixer. After using my little handheld mixer for, like, my whole life, one day it occurred to me it might be much easer to have a stand alone mixer. I like to bake, but I had no idea how much easier this would be! This is one purchase I should have made about 20 years ago!

These are the "old" (5 years) cabinets, but with the new counter top to match the new counter top. With every thing organized differently, even this side of the kitchen looks new to me too now.