What's cooking?

As we were doing demolition, we kept waffling about whether we should just demo the kitchen too. It would be so messy to do once we were living here BUT so expensive to do now. After much debate, Evan just climbed a ladder, stuck a sledgehammer into the ceiling with moxie and said, "we're doing the kitchen". And that was that.

We removed all the old cabinets and repurposed them for storage in the basement. We removed even more wall treatments and found this SWEET vintage wallpaper. We saved as much as we could - hopefully to frame one day and honor the history of the home. We found a weird, broken little chimney we had to remove and fill in (masonry skills engage!) Then we had to decide how we wanted to orient the space and design the layout. Working on this together really helped Evan and I communicate better. Since E was going to build the kitchen, we really could do whatever we wanted. I wanted some open shelving. Evan wanted to use walnut. We love a big island so that was priority #1. And I love when the stove is in the island. Our (licensed contractor) buddy moved the gas line so we could put the stove into the island.

We decided on a few specialty pieces. Evan put in a beautiful lidded bread drawer into the island. He built in a cookbook shelf as well. And we worked with another buddy (shoutout Seth!) to get a concrete countertop for the island. He even inlaid some beautiful stones we found on a trip to Colorado!

For the rest of the counters, we got Ikea butcher block that Evan cut down to fit. After a monthlong debacle with the sink we ordered, Home Depot hooked us up with a super sweet Franke farmhouse sink. Would definitely recommend. The sink grate is a gamechanger. Running water was also a game changer. I think I cried the first time Evan turned the working faucet on.

We got a nice dishwasher that didn't have a facade panel so Evan made one to match the cabinets. He also did a really cool cabinet that custom fits all of our spices. We installed a plant wall from Ikea to act as a curtain, an air freshener, AND TO breathe a little life into the space.
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