You’ve seen my bedroom, Noah’s room, the front porch and bits of the school room.  But I’ve never shown you my kitchen.

I love my kitchen.  I redid it two years ago.  And now, two years later, there’s nothing I would change.  It is cheerful and lovely and functional.  It’s just right for us.

There are two doorways into the kitchen from the dining room/school room.  This is the view from one of the doorways.

We added the french doors last year and built a deck outside.  So we can eat out there when the weather’s good.  We have two ranges….one electric, one gas.  That gives me two large ovens and eight burners!  It’s just what this large family needs.  The pot filler over the electric range is handy for those giant soup pots.

If you stand in front of the french doors and turn around this is what you see…..

This is sooo cool.  That rock chimney was hidden in a wall.  We didn’t know it was there until we started tearing apart the old kitchen.  I love it!  And behind it, in the island, I made a little shelf for my cookbooks.  It’s so hard to make them look nice and neat.  So I tucked them in a discreet little spot.

Here’s the wall with the sink, dishwasher, refrigerator, gas range and over-the-stove-microwave.  You can just barely see the range on the far right.

The backsplash is tumbled travertine that I laid in a subway pattern.  I changed all of the accessories to oil rubbed bronze.  a few years ago I made the punched tin in the upper cabinets, but it was silver.  So I spray painted it to match the oil rubbed bronze faucet, knobs, etc.  LOVE!

I’m crazy about my sink.  It’s divided, but it also works for large pots and pans.  And while we’re on the subject of what’s great about my kitchen…..check out the instant hot water dispenser on the right.  It’s hot tea for me every night baby!

I couldn’t afford marble or granite.  So I used 18″ travertine tiles.  They are really pretty and they have been easy to care for AND they only cost $25 total!  You can’t beat that.

I have to show you the little shelf over the sink.  These spice bottles were my grandmother’s.  She painted on the words herself.  I wanted to display them, but in a place where the kids wouldn’t break them.  So I made a tiny shelf here just for them.

If you turn around from the sink this is what you see…..

That’s my “kid lunch area”.  There’s another microwave near the sink.  The one in this picture is for the kids to use.  There’s a small fridge over there for their lunch food.  I made a little shelf on the back of that counter for the kids’ cups.  With that many cups every day…..each kid has their own color and they have to keep their cup in this spot when they’re not using it.

Look to the left and you’ll see the other side of the electric range….it’s a chalkboard!  We keep a running grocery list there.  The door to the left leads to the pantry.

Ok….here’s the “little fridge”.  Above this fridge are my everyday dishes.

My island.  It’s truly an oasis.  I love the color.  We keep fruit in the drawer baskets.  But the big deal is the island countertop.  It is just pine planks.  I stripped it and refinished it when we did the kitchen two years ago, but I actually put in this countertop when we moved in seven years ago.  It only cost $36 and it has been wonderful!

All of the cabinets are pre-assembled from Home Depot.  It took me several days to add all of the trim….but it’s a detail that makes all the difference.  It makes them look a lot more expensive than they were.  Then on the island I added trim around the bottom to make it look like a custom piece.

This spot by the window changes.  Sometimes I have a couch here, sometimes school desks….whatever I’m in the mood for.

I’ve got a post coming up about these chairs.  They make my heart go pitter pat.

Here’s my best tip when redoing a kitchen…..

For a month before, keep a list of everything that doesn’t work for you.  Even the tiniest thing.  Then, as long as you’re redecorating, fix everything on that list.  For me it was a towel bar the kids kept pulling on, so I changed to hooks.  I needed a place to keep lot of fresh fruit and I wanted everything off the counters.  So I added those basket drawers.  There were a lot of things I changed that I wouldn’t have thought of without that list.

I want you to know that when I say *I* did it….I mean **I** did it.  No carpenter, no tile guy, no one.  Just me.  Jacob helps a lot, but he was only 16 when we did this project. James is a wonderful husband, but he was busy with tax season.  The girls will sometimes help paint, which is great.  I tell you that so you’ll know you can do it too…..just try.  You may surprise yourself!

Thanks for visiting my kitchen.  Come by in person and I’ll fix you a quick cup of hot tea.

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Can I share something with you?

Something so delicious, so dreamy that it will make your toes curl?

Here it is……

My new, clean, white, un-scratched by children’s hands refrigerator.

“How,” you ask, “Did you get this lovely creature to agree to come and live with you?”

Well I’ll tell you. The fridge in mi casita (old gold, from circa 1975) died. Muerto. Kaput.

I had been waiting, with baited breath, for this monstrosity to go. Last week it breathed it’s last, cold breath. Hooray!

I convinced DUH (I have my ways) that we needed to put the side-by-side, nothing-can-fit-in-this-thing fridge from the house….over in the casita. Thus leaving me without a cooler in the big house. I poured online over ratings and reviews and I finally settled on this one.

It’s called a “french door” refrigerator. Doesn’t that just roll off your tongue? I know it doesn’t have the ice/water dispenser. We don’t need it. We have an Ozarka water dispenser that gives us cold water. We are planning to buy an ice maker for the new utility room. I really just needed fridge space….and that is what I got!

Ain’t it purdy?

This is all of the stuff out of the old fridge with room to spare. I’m in love, I think. I may sleep on the floor next to it for a few nights, so it will know how I feel about it.

No more cramming groceries into 10 inches of space. No more near dead fridge in the casita. It’s just me and my clean fridge (OK, and the other 10 people that live here, but we’re not going to talk about what they will do to my beauty).

Thanks for letting me tell you about it. I knew you would understand how I feel. The other 10 people here are laughing at me as I wipe their slimy fingerprints off of her freezer drawer.

Oh! I can’t forget the best part….it has an alarm that goes off if she is left open too long. That means those 9 pesky kids can’t ruin the milk and ice cream anymore!

SWEET!