Finally, A Kitchen to Call Our Own!!

If you have been following our journey through the ordeals of having a house fire, than I'm pretty sure you remember these types of photos that I was posting in the beginning:

That was back in March. six and a half months without a kitchen to call your own, and four of those months, no kitchen what-so-ever, the dream of finally having a kitchen was slowly coming to together these past several weeks.  This morning we finally had all the hook up completed, all the appliances big, and small, put into place, and are making our own breakfasts, lunches, and dinners!  And folks, here is the outcome of all the waiting:

Because we still do not have the wood floors finished, we are still without a dining room table and chairs, so last night we played cards at the kitchen counter.  While sitting in the kitchen, my husband and I looked at each other, and said "We had an adult kitchen now."  It all seems so surreal,  to look around the kitchen and know that we came UNDER budget on every aspect of this kitchen!  Yes, I said under budget!  I'm not talking pennies either, believe it or not we came under budget by more than $3000!  I guess you could look at the silver lining here, that because we had SO much time to look around, get prices, and haggle among other things, we were able to save money, find sales, decide where to put more money, and decide where not to put money, and take a good hard look at what we NEEDED, what we didn't need, what worked in our previous kitchens, as well as what didn't work. 

This kitchen is a work of what my husband and I had visions of.  There were no professional designers, no hiring of decorators, just what we had in our heads.  We had our kitchen designed from our specs at both Lowe's as well as Home Depot, priced them out, asked for savings, and went with the better cabinets, which ended up being cheaper, by more than $2000!  By no means would one call me store loyal, our cabinets came from Home Depot, while the major appliances came from Lowe's.  Small appliances came from Target and T.J. Maxx.  Seems like we make a pretty good team.  With our fresh start in our new almost finished home, there is yet another fresh start in the kitchen...looking in the fridge, there are no more junk food snacks!  Just lots of healthy fruits, vegetables, and meats!  Cooking together in our new kitchen has been more wonderful than one could imagine!