Our New Kitchen (The Grand Tour)

 

Well, I am going to go ahead and call the kitchen project DONE! We started in April and finished right after Halloween. There were definitely some ups & downs on this project, including a broken, granite countertop and replacing a large portion of the kitchen tile (which is no longer manufactured and had to be tracked down to NYC via Italy). This was a huge project that expanded our kitchen by more than 50% of its original size. We improved our dining room space and did some prep work for a future project. I am very grateful to have this project completed! So, here's the grand tour:

 

 

The two photos above and the first below are photos of the original kitchen space after the remodel. (I would encourage you to check out some of the original photos of the kitchen that I have previously posted on this blog.) The doorway in the photo above has a pocket door, which came in very handy over the summer when I was boiling large pots of water on the stove for hours at a time and did not want to heat up the rest of the house. Darren did a lot of legwork on our choices for cabinets, and I love the final choices that he made! I think the colors from the paint to the backsplash to the floor tile all go together very well. This space is just beautiful to me!

 

 

The next two photos show the kitchen expansion. This part of the house was originally a porch that the previous owners had enclosed to make a sort of indoor seating area. When we first moved in, we changed the flooring and added the two bay windows at either end, making the lower level our dining room and the upper level was just a space without any real purpose aside from being where we put the cat food bowls and the fish tank. Now, it is a fully integrated part of the kitchen with its own sink and beverage fridge and lots of added cupboard space. (We still need to get glass shelves for the lighted cabinets to complete this space.)

 

 

Okay, so now I will show off a few bells & whistles. These are some of the specialty things we added to our kitchen space that just make things a little easier. All of the cupboards & drawers have a quiet close mechanism, so it is impossible to slam anything. Once you push a drawer or cupboad closed, it catches and finishes closing on its own. The cupboard below is great for this little space, and as you can see, we use it for our tumblers, mugs & coffee. This space is pretty much coffee-central, and I can honestly say that now that we have the Keurig, I would rather shuffle over to make my delicious coffee drink than head out to get something.

 



 

We replaced some of our old cupboard space with drawers, which I find to be very convenient for plasticware and the kids' dining ware.

 



 

I LOVE this! In the old kitchen we had a trash can in the broom closet, a recycling bin on the floor and a bag for kitchen laundry. Now, I have everything in this cupboard that holds three bins!

 



 

This is our cabinet with the drawer pull-outs. It did have a wooden box that was supposed to hold the pot lids, but I had trouble fitting the lids in it because they were too big. Darren took it out and put it in the drawer with the plasticware to hold those lids.

 



 

This is our super-cabinet! This cabinet is full of pull-outs and holds a ton of stuff, which is why I made it the snack cupboard. My little munchers are constantly asking for snacks, and I love having everything in one, convenient place where they can grab what they want.

 



 

When you're redoing your kitchen, you try to fill up every inch of space with storage. We have these smaller cupboards flanking the stove, and I didn't really like this space for spices and baking items (which is where I stored them in the old space), so I decided to use this space for my cookbooks. I love having my cookbooks handy when I need them.

 

 

This is our can cupboard. It is just a few inches wide and sits right beside the fridge. It is a great use of a very small space.

 

 

This little drawer is called a toe-kick drawer and it is in the space that hardly anyone ever uses between the cabinets and the floor. We have three of them, and I find they are convenient for holding rags (as shown), kitchen towels and the always necessary junk drawer.

 

 

And this concludes the tour of our new kitchen! I have always said that I could cook just about anywhere, but if I had my choice I would choose this space everytime! I am grateful for our contractors (Nair Painting) and all the workers who put in time to help create this space. I am most grateful to my husband who helped realize & facilitate this dream and always had my best interests in mind. He made a lot of the decisions when I would/could not and led us through the entire process with calm & strength even when I called him in tears (on several occasions) or he had to bear the brunt of my frustrations. I love you, Darren!

 

 

(The dining room space is completed also, but we are waiting for our dining room furniture. I will post photos when it arrives... hopefully, before Christmas!)

1 Girl, 2 Wheels

 

Last weekend, Kyrie told me that she wanted to try riding her bike without training wheels. This is a goal that we have wanted to achieve, but did not have an opportunity to work on over the summer (Darren & I had very little time because of our work maintaining the garden). I was a little doubtful of success, but I got the tools and went straight to work removing the training wheels.

I called Kyrie outside and we tried a few runs down the driveway. As I held onto the back of the bicycle seat, I tried to break down the task into understandable fragments of information. She was nervous and frustrated easily. I had to balance providing information and not overwhelming her with instruction. I wanted her to keep practicing, feeling that progress...success even was near at hand, but I did not want to become overbearing and push her frustration to the point that she abandoned the endeavor altogether. I continued to encourage her while emphasizing balance and her control over the situation and the bicycle.

 

I came to the conclusion that the difficulty and therefore the focus on my instruction had to be how to start the bike. I told her how to move the pedals, how to push forward until she could bring both feet onto the pedals.

And then she was riding... three feet, five feet, twenty feet. We stopped to rest, jubilant with success. We showed Darren when he came home. The next day, I would watch out the window as she rode by herself in the driveway and then in the yard. The following afternoons, she would be outside riding all over the yard. This success was even sweeter because she did it all on her own! We are very proud of Kyrie and her accomplishment!

Girl Scout Journey Hike

 

This is Kyrie's second year as a Girl Scout Daisy! We have had a great start to our Girl Scout year with some new faces and lots of fun activities. This year, the girls are working on earning their second journey badge. Earning their journey badges includes reading and participating in activities. One of their activities was a nature hike at the Grange Insurance Audobon Center. We had a mild, sunny afternoon, and all the girls had a great time on their nature scavenger hunt. They learned a lot about natural habitats.

 

The girls observe the Scioto Rivershed. 

The girls listen to the instructor before beginning another nature activity.

The girls complete an activity reflecting on their hiking experience.

St. Martin's Day Procession 2012

 

We were delighted to participate in our second Ohio German Language School St. Martin's Day procession. The school's families meet at a local park after sundown with their children and a variety of handmade lanterns to celebrate the feast of St. Martin. St. Martin was a soldier who gave half of his cloak to a beggar on a bitterly cold night. Our small procession is an approximation of the much larger celebration that occurs in Germany. We walk around the park with our lanterns singing traditional songs before sharing in warm drinks and sweets. This year we were lucky to have a very mild night.

 

Autumn Flowers

 

On our way to lunch downtown, we passed through an alley with a flower bed filled with autumn mums. The kids were drawn to the bright flowers, and I took some impromptu photos. These are some of my favorites!

 

Dancing With the Nutcracker 2012

 

We joined our friends for another year of Dancing With the Nutcracker. This is an experience presented by BalletMet that introduces children to the story of the Nutcracker and allows them to see small portions of the ballet's most iconic dances, as well as join in on some of the dancing. This was Kyrie's second year participating and Degen's first. The kids really enjoyed it!

 

I love this picture because the girls are doing their pretty ballerina moves, and Degen is getting funky with it!

 

Degen watching the fight between the mice & the toy soldiers.

Kyrie & Isabelle watching the Sugar Plum Fairy.

American Girl Fashion Show 2012

 

This was our second year attending the American Girl Fashion Show benefitting the Lauren Faith Miller Foundation. We were excited that Kyrie's friend, Isabelle & her new doll could join us this year. The event is very well done and helps to raise funds to help families with children born with congenital heart defects. The girls had a great time!

 

Degen also joined us this year since Darren was out-of-town on business.

Furry Fall

A rare photo of Diva, our shy girl! 

 

Here are some pics of our fur-babies! As the weather has gotten cooler, they have gotten extra-fluffy & cuddly!

 

A tangle of cats: Brutus, Samson & Lilah

Little Lilah perched on the tub. She LOVES water!

Samson looking very grown up!

Bentley in his favorite chair!