"Before and After: The Story of a Kitchen"

Come on in... ... and have a peek at our new kitchen.

You can also enter through the family room. The brick from the fireplace wraps right around to the cooking area.


Here it is!

It's light!

It's bright!

It kind of makes me feel like dancing every morning when I greet the day here.

See this guy zipping around in my light and bright kitchen?

That's Roger from Partners 4, Design. He designed my new happy place.

Everybody needs a happy place.

And everybody needs a Roger.

The reason he's zipping around my happy place on this particular day is he's getting it ready for a photo shoot so he can show off my new kitchen to some colleagues. And he shared the photos with me, which is why I have these lovely, cool-angle, professional shots of my happy place courtesy of Gilbertson Photography.

As you can see...

... Roger moves quickly and confidently through a project. I say that lest you think that the fact it's taken me, like, a hundred years to post these photos means the project took a long time to complete.

It didn't.

In fact my neighbors marveled that a project as large as a kitchen remodel could happen virtually under their noses without their knowing it. Let alone experiencing any disruption in their normal neighborhood routine.

The truth is... the remodel was quick. It was painless. We love the results. We love Roger.

Hmmm... about that upstairs bathroom.........

I digress. It took me a long time to get this post up because I wanted to do a good job with it. Like, I wanted to be sure to give you some good before and after examples:

So here they come.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

This wall of cabinets on the right always gives guests a bit of a surprise.

Suprise! It's a refrigerator/freezer. The little nieces and nephews go crazy over this. Like it's magic or something.

There's a pullout pantry viewable from both sides. No more losing things back in the recesses of the the cupboard.

Then the area closes up neat as a pin again.

Let's take a closer look at a couple of cupboards. They were made by Crystal Cabinet Works, a Minnesota company.

Our old kitchen featured a couple of narrow corner areas. No way to get way back in there to use all that in accessible space unless we were to train tiny Coco to fetch and retrieve. And, believe me, she ain't that kind of dog.

Before.

After:

Feel free to break out into the Hallelujah Chorus now.

I do everytime I open this innovatively designed cupboard. It's a life changer.

Here's another one.

Before:

After:

Brilliant. Simple but brilliant.

We also replaced the dark wood staircase leading to our second floor with light wood.

Now, here are a few of our own photos showing the kitchen in action.

This is what I call the "appliance garage." I can hides those messy things things that I've always kept on the counter away by pulling down the door. It's got an official name... tamber something...I can't remember. Roger are you out there?

My daughter...

... set a cute table when her friends came over.

Her photos show...

... one of the cool light fixtures Roger picked.

I love how my girl always uses fun colors.

This...

is one of my favorite paintings. People who come to see my new kitchen often ask about it. A local artist named Clinton Rost painted it. I got it at my favorite local gallery....

... Gallery 360, in South Minneapolis. They carry his work often and on January 15 open a six week show of his work. I won't miss it!

But I digress. Again.

Back to Roger...

... any my happy place.

At one point during construction I had a dream that the kitchen was finished and that we had a huge part to celebrate. In my dream, Partners 4, Design hosted the party and you should have seen the food.

I have been trying to convince Roger that this would be a lovely finishing touch to his already wonderful stewardship of the project.

But, alas, if I were to invite all of you, my blogging world friends, he would be feeding hundreds. And that, I fear, would be a lot to expect.

Even of Roger.