SFGate

by karin183

We love our new kitchen. We don't know why we waited so long.

Actually we do know why we waited so long, remodeling kitchens are expensive. We have lived in our house 17 years. The kitchen just wasn't a place that we wanted to cook in or hang out. Now it's the best room to be in. Our house was built in 1873 and the most recent remodel to the kitchen was done in 1991 by the previous owner. I wouldn't even move into the house until we installed a dishwasher. The prior owner didn't mind washing dishes.

When we were working with a designer (a great designer by the way that we found on Houzz, her name is Rebekah Zaveloff) to change the existing kitchen foot print/layout we happened to tell our sons what we were thinking and our youngest (11 at the time) said "I know what we have to do, we need to put the table in the middle .....". My husband and I stared at each other in amazement. My 11 year old son had answered the design dilemma, how to open up the kitchen without adding to the original floor space, i.e. knock down exterior walls or take away a portion of our family room.

I am also a lover of color. The old kitchen was white cabinets with black & white flaking formica counters and purple walls. Oh, yeah don't forget the white linoleum floor. Never get white floors if you don't plan on cleaning them hourly. Our new kitchen has navy blue with a bit of gray custom cabinets with white beveled subway tile in a basket weave design. We are all tall in our family so we raised the dishwasher and the double ovens. We were tired of bending. Raising the dishwasher has been a blessing.

My favorite part of the kitchen is the range top. I never knew that carmelizing onions shouldn't take 15 minutes. It's a joy to work on.

I hope you love our kitchen as much as we do.