Country Kitchen-ing

Going to my parent’s house in Kutztown is always refreshing, but this weekend, after a few too many crazy summer nights, it was especially relaxing. This time of year in the country is beautiful and my dad’s gardens are producing more fresh fruits and vegetables than we are able to eat. Our Friday night dinner consisted of fresh potatoes, green beans and lettuce straight from the garden… absolutely delicious.

Nom.

As my dad would say - the view from here.

We woke up Saturday morning to the sound of contractors finishing up the electrical and plumbing work for my parent’s new kitchen. They are undergoing quite a project – moving the entire kitchen from it’s current location to our previously underused living room, a much bigger and beautiful space.

Current Kitchen

Mary making moves

Spacing out the new lights

My mom moved the furniture from the old living room and made the sunroom into a really comfortable, cozy place. I was surprised by what a great extension of the kitchen it has become.

New sunroom

Seeing my mom’s project coming to life gave me the inspiration I needed to make moves on our kitchen project. We are getting close to crunch time (three weeks before demolition and floors go in) so some of the big decisions need to happen. We headed over to our contractor's house with the new tile we selected for our floor to pick out paint and hardware for the cabinets. Out of the selection of 50 whites, my mom helped me pick Peony White, which should (hopefully) complement both the Coarse Carrara counters and the floors.

New tile and paint!

We decided to hold off on selecting the hardware right there on the spot. I have a really bad habit of just making decisions and moving on, and my mom urged me to think about this a little more. We like the horizontal bars for the drawers but I think I want to have round handles for the doors, something a bit more modern.

Horizontal-style Pulls

Both mine and my parent’s new cabinets were sitting in the warehouse, so it was very cool to see our designs come to life. My mom’s are complete since they will be installed next week and they are absolutely beautiful – it really made me excited for mine!

My parent's new island!

My parent's cabinets

Woot woot! Our kitchen!!

I left my contractor's house feeling excited but overwhelmed about our new kitchen, so it was time to eat. The contractor’s (and Andrew) love working for my mom because she completely spoils them with elaborate lunches. Andrew spent the morning riding his bike up Hawk Mountain so he took full advantage of the spoiling, eating multiple BLTs and huge helpings of homemade macaroni & cheese. Quite the life.

Andrew ready to eat

After lunch my mom and I headed to Lowe’s to check out faucets and back splash tiles. I ended up buying a fancy (compared to what we currently have) stainless steel faucet...one more thing off the to-do list.

New faucet. Big deal.

We spent the rest of the day in Kutztown relaxing, resting up for Sunday’s bike race and feeling accomplished from the big kitchen weekend. We were up early Sunday to head to the race in Bethlehem which Andrew won...

Stud.

...and narrowly escaped the nastiest crash I have ever witnessed. 

This week we will be ordering our tile (cross your fingers they come in within the next three weeks) and should receive our new stove hood and the chandelier for over the kitchen island. Three more weeks to go!