The Lake House Renovation: Fresh Kitchen with Not So Fresh Fruit

I've been playing a little coy with the latest on our kitchen.  Last weekend, we cooked in it for the first time since we started this project, but it still wasn't quite finished.

I was going to wait to share pics until everything was done, but we had such dramatic changes this weekend, that I had to share.  

Here's what it looked like Saturday morning.  

The island is Presley's favorite new play spot.  

Window looking onto the street. 

We had a small issue with our bracket for our tv, so we are waiting for liquid nail to harden before putting it on the fireplace. 

Then, Saturday, around 2:00, the magical fairies from Great American Home Store made a beautiful delivery.  

No dogs on the new furniture, so Aaron and Julia picked up this doggie bed from Costco for us.  

Finally!  We have furniture.  I am so happy with it.  It looks amazing and is so functional.  We are still missing a couple of chairs.  

Also, we finally have a vent hood.  I cannot tell you the headache this thing was.  I really wanted one that just blended into the background, meaning, I wanted to hide it in a cabinet.  We had so much trouble finding one that would work.  To the rescue, Aaron found us the perfect model.  Which, once again, I hope you are following his Facebook page.  He has helped us solve so many problems.  

In addition to helping us find the vent hood, Aaron also helped us install it!
Follow his Facebook page! 

It looks great, and I love how it makes the backsplash look!

Woohoo!

There are still a few things left to do in the kitchen.  Michael's dad is helping us get our outlets finished up.  

Here's a few more pictures from this weekend...

Breaking in the card table!

Couldn't let the weekend pass without a boat ride.

My love for this guy is unhealthy.  If you get one, make sure you get an iRobot Roomba brand.
Yes, they are more expensive than off brands, but they are so worth it.  We had an off brand and it was crap.
This little guy works.

So, all of our dishes have been sitting in our storage area.  We were so frantic the day we moved all of our dishes out of the kitchen for demo, that apparently we missed a bowl of fruit.  This is what fruit looks like after 4 months.  Yep, that's a banana!  YUCK!

The Lake House Renovation - Designing the Kitchen

Though I don't have much proof, there has been a lot going on this week.

Michael and I have been spending about an hour each night trying to decide on appliances.  We've been emailing back and forth with our awesome kitchen designer as we put our kitchen look together, and we've been taking almost EVERYTHING from the first floor except for our master bathroom contents and laundry room contents down to our workshop area.  

Appliance decisions are tough!  There are so many different stores, so many different brands, and so many thoughts that it's overwhelming.

I'm so grateful for Facebook.  After almost thinking I didn't want to go with wall ovens, my Facebook family quickly responded to my request for advice, and we will definitely be having double wall ovens.  

Another one of the major dilemmas is whether or not to match our current refrigerator or buy all new. 

Our current refrigerator is a Whirlpool Gold that is NOT counter depth.

I think this is our current refrigerator.  It came with the house.

That's not a huge deal, as our kitchen designer can build something that will keep it from looking crazy big, but if we go with it, it will take up a little more space and we will probably need to stick with Whirlpool Gold appliances for the wall oven and dishwasher.  I'm not finding a lot of options with Whirlpool Gold, so I'm leaning toward Frigidaire.

We would want to stick with Frigidaire for the refrigerator, dishwasher, and wall ovens.

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For the microwave, I'm sold on this incredibly expensive Sharp drawer microwave. 

SMD3070ASY

Yes, it's very pricey, but we need something that can go on our island.  This has the control panel at the top, so it's perfect.  I THINK I've convinced Michael to spend a little more here.

We are adding gas to our kitchen, so we will be purchasing a gas cooktop.  I think I've settled on this Maytag.  

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Now, I have to figure out where to buy these.  I see some with one of these items for super cheap, but then everything else is crazy expense.  Then, some places offer 10% off or 24 months 0 percent financing.  Just while I've been typing this blog, I've come across even better deals than I've got on my spreadsheet.  It's making my head spin!

Our kitchen designer is incredibly patient with me.  He sends me designs, I tell him what I like and don't like, then he emails back with the modifications.  Our current design appears to be the following:

This is the bird's eye view.  Our living room would be to the left of this picture.  The oven goes in the corner.   

Looking at the refrigerator and coffee bar.  This is the top part of the bird's eye view picture.  

This is the oven, sink, dishwasher, and pantry.

These are the island cabinets.  

One thing I recently changed my mind about was the island.  At first, I wanted a bar height and counter height island.  So, we were going to go with something that looks like this...

Then, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted a gigantic island that would handle any project, whether it be cooking or school related.  I just want a huge space that is all one level.  So, I'm liking this look more...

Now, I'm also checking to see if we can get some shelves put in on the part of the island that is not cabinets.  I think that would be a cool thing to have for cookbooks or supplies that aren't necessarily related to cooking.

I actually just found a discussion about this topic on Houzz.com.

So, there you have it.  Lots of confusion, but progress is being made!