The "Afters"!!!!

My sweet friend told me the other day that she kept checking my blog, hoping the pics our newly improved home were there. So I decided to finally take the time to put these up! I must say first of all, what a joy it is to be back in our home, where I belong. Most of the difficulty I had with being away was the fact that I felt like I was out of my domain. My home is my place of work, my place of service, my place of refuge, and the place where my role as a wife and mom is fulfilled. So naturally, I really missed it! And wow, coming home to this truly was so exciting. We are just thrilled with all the work Roy Chacon and his crew did on our home, along with several other craftsman who are excellent at their trades. If you need any recommendations, let us know!

Let's start in the kitchen and I'll walk you through some of the rooms.
Dave put a beautiful new sill and mouldings around my kitchen window...before was ugly flat board.

Double shelf storage in my corner cabinet...makes a lovely appliance garage and place for all my commonly used small appliances and such. So much more space than before.

We kept our beautiful butcher block counters....because I love them so much. We chose a white subway tile backsplash with antique white grout. I really miss the blue windmill tiles that were scattered in my old backsplash. NOT!!!!!! I got to personally smash those into pieces when we demolished the old kitchen. Boy was it fun.

This pic isn't so great, but it shows this portion of my kitchen. Our cabinet maker designed our upper cabinets to be a foot taller, and he also added crown moulding. Love.

One of the special features of the redesign was to have deep drawers for my pots and pans, and also for my baking dishes. I also have what I call the "angry wife" drawer closures. They can be slammed as hard as you can humanly slam them, yet they shut about 90% of the way, and then slowly glide closed the rest of the way. Nice. Especially when you have kids. Oh wait, my kids don't know how to close drawers, only open them.

These are pull out drawers to organize my canned goods and dry goods. Before I just had one shelf in here, so I had a lot of wasted space. I also had to physically crawl inside the cabinet to get to the back. Ha! Now I just slide them open, and I have easy access to all my foods! Our cabinet guy designed the top shelf just for cans, and they fit in there perfectly!

Another shot of this side of the kitchen.

He built out the cabinet above my fridge, and now it is an extremely useful storage area! He also built a "box" around the fridge, to make it look quite custom! And now, I can actually open my fridge door all the way.

We eliminated the upper glass cabinets, with the exception of one cabinet above the microwave for display items. It is so nice to not have to worry about everything being "display-able" anymore!

It's hard to see the colors, but we chose a sage green for the cabinets. Since I am unable to create what I want in my head, I go to catalogs and pictures for advice. I opened a cabinet catalog, saw this door style and color, and said, "This is what I want!" We also chose tile for the floor in the kitchen, entry, and dining rooms this time around. Hardwood in the kitchen- not so smart. I was a TOTAL slave to that floor, as it showed every smear, every drop of water, every "everything." Tile floor-that's what I am talking about! Shows NOTHING! I took great joy in washing my hands and dripping water all the way over to the stove where I grabbed my towel to dry them. Oh yes.

The tile in very neutral and variegated in color. Love the rich tones. We had Roy's tile guy lay the tiles in a "running bond" pattern, as opposed to the traditional layout. I love it.

Sorry, but some of these pics are bad...they were taken with my phone, so bear with me. We stopped the tile along the wall that separates the kitchen with the living room. Here now begins the hickory handscraped/distressed hardwood. My sweet husband installed this beautiful floor for me, after he insisted he would never again install hardwood flooring. But it saved us so much money for him to do it himself! And it was much easier to work with. Mostly all one color, wider planks, and only working in the living room and hall made this project go much more smooth than the last time around.

I love the natural knots and pocs in the wood. So if my kiddos dent the floor, you won't know which ones they caused and which ones were there to begin with!

Bad pic. Very bad pic.

Another bad living room shot, but you get it.

A little better!

Diving line between the entryway and hall.

Looking down the hall into the living room.

New tile floor in the guest/hall/boys bathroom.

New vanity and granite top.

Newly remodeled master bath. We totally changed the whole configuration. Our contractor pretty much gutted the whole thing, dug up the concrete, and dug down into the dirt underneath to reroute the drain pipes, since we moved the toilet to a new location, and added a tub. It was so fun to see them completely destroy my old yucky stall shower. Buh-bye! Hello tub and shower! As you will see, we went with an old-school retro black and white theme. Dave and I have always loved that look, and so we went for it. In the shower we used classic (and cheap, by the way) white subway tile, with a light gray grout.

We added a black pencil tile about two-thirds up the wall. We also had the tile guy mount some ceramic shelves. Love them.

The floor is classic hexagon with dot, also with gray grout to make the pattern "POP"! We also added black subways around the whole perimeter of the bathroom.

We now have a place for our old 40's style dresser in the bathroom too. It looks so perfect in there! We got a curved hotel style shower rod, and a hotel style monogramed shower curtain with a classic look. We also threw out our old brass framed mirrored closet doors and replaced them with frameless.

New black vanity with carrera marble counters in white and gray. We kept our old medicine cabinet, as it seems to match fairly well! The toilet is enjoying it's new location.

Tiffany blue walls in the bathroom and bedroom complete the look! So thrilled with the bathroom. I can't even believe it is my bathroom!!!!

Well, thanks for going on the tour with me! It was fun! We are so thankful beyond words, and are really enjoying HOME!!!! Beautiful HOME SWEET HOME! Thanks be to God!