The almost there Kitchen

When we moved into this house there were a few appliances missing. We bought a fridge and a microwave. The microwave on the counter was taking up to much real estate. We decided that we would get stainless with plans in the future to switch out the white ones. That has not happened yet.
I did manage to give the cabinets a face lift. There was really nothing wrong with them other than the normal wear and tear of 10 years also I just didn't like the color. So I sanded them down and used a gel stain to get them to the new color. The thing with builder grade cabinets is that they cover the cabinet ends and most of the island with particle board and you cant stain that. The solution was to replace it with wood wainscoting and stain it to match the cabinets.

Two days before Christmas we said goodbye to the blue Formica counter tops. The Granite was installed by Absolute Stone at a really great price. If you click on the top pic you can see that the Formica has chunks missing from it on the sides. It wont be missed!


A friend suggested Best Tile when I mentioned that I was looking for subway tile. The travertine I found was 3.99 sf. Other places I priced it was a lot more $$. I installed the backslash after the holidays it took about 3 days working 5 hours a day. They make it seem so easy on TV but I guess they skip the prep time and the clean up. I also installed lights under the cabinets. (They are hard to see in the picture because the overhead light is so bright) I'm please with the look so far. All there is left to do is the floor and get rid of the white.
Trim may be needed the bottom of the top cabinets so that the light fixtures are not so visible.

The island stools may be blending in a little to well so I may have to change them to black. What do you think?