Kitchen Renovation: Let There Be Light!!

Bet you didn't expect a kitchen update from me, did ya?

Yea, it's been a while.  But a few weeks ago, the lighting situation was completed.

First, you may recall the old chandelier:

Awful huh?  Well, I like to think this is much better:

Yea, that's better.  When we did all our shopping for the kitchen, we also purchased some pendent lights to hang over the island.  It was a busy summer and we hadn't gotten around to getting them installed.  But, they have finally been hung!

Here's the (messy) before.

And, although not quite the same angle I think you can still get the idea, the after:

Finished the room off, don't you think?

I have a plan to paint the kitchen before Christmas, at which point I'll also clean it and have a whole bunch of final pictures (hopefully).  Of course, the cabinets still need to be straightened and the slow close thingys still need to be put on.  But, one thing at a time...not like we've been working on this since... ya know, MAY, or anything.

Kitchen Renovation: What We Did Right

In any home renovation, there's things you do right, and things you do wrong.  We usually have plenty of each.  Here's the stuff we did really right:

• Keeping expectations in check.  When we discussed doing the kitchen, B kept saying "We could flip it in a weekend!" I half believed him.  Once the time came, we were realistic about when it would be done, and tried to plan it in a way that our helpers wouldn't be overwhelmed, and luckily ended up with only one really late night.

• Planning the renovation for the warmer months allowed us to leverage our grill for meals and not have to eat out *as* much - although it was still too much for me.

• Having a microwave let us make some food - granted it was my mini-one from college and took about twice as long as a regular one - which was better than any more Subway!

• Shopping around before making our purchases.  It might be completely and totally exhausting and frustrating, but I'd say we saved several thousands of dollars by pitting Lowe's against our local lumber store, and Home Depot against Sears on our oven.  The key is to ask, to be honest that you think it's too much, and ask if there's anything they can do. Chances are, there is.

• Using people. Ok, that doesn't sound right, because we weren't really using them, they were helping us.  And they were all willing - I swear!  We're really lucky to have quite a few friends with some useful skills, and trust me, our bank account appreciated it!  And don't worry, we'll be ready and willing to help them all out in return any time!

I'm sure there's more stuff I could list, but I don't want to brag or anything :P Don't worry... there's a list of what we did wrong coming shortly as well!