Kitchens: the hub of our home

I have been saving "the big one" to talk about until I had all of my ducks in a row and I had a clear vision on the look that I was going for. You all may remember from several blog posts back that I gave up a basement for this...so it better be worth it!

Here goes...

It all began with this picture of this kitchen ceiling...

which as you can see, 

had the "Dave Gray coffee shop" eat-in area

Something about this layout struck a cord with us and we designed our entire house around this concept.

Because I am a "visual person", I decided to mock up my cabinet layout so I could take it to meet with the cabinet builder. I could immediately tell from his reaction that he thought he was dealing with a "crazy person". 

range wall

frig wall

As the crazy person that I am, I decided to go for it and push the cabinet builder over the edge by presenting a plethora of kitchen images to confuse him even more. 

First, I started with images of kitchens with the range in between 2 windows.

Interior Designer: Betty Burgess

Tracery Interiors

 

Next, I kicked into high gear with photos of pantry walls and islands. 

Let me tell you, he was psyched!

Lee Kleinhelter

Tracery Interiors

Wendy Barze, Marjorie Johnston Interiors

But seriously, the cabinet maker, Tim at McCormick Cabinets, was the nicest guy! I appreciated his patience with me considering he had just finished a 48 hour shift at the Mountain Brook fire department. I only made the poor man sit there and listen to me ramble on for 4 hours.

SIDE NOTE:

And while I'm talking about patience, there may be an award given to our builder, Byrom Building. They both have endured my countless emails, all with multiple photos attached. Marty & Colt have the "patience of Job" and are the nicest people to work with. We couldn't have selected a better pair of guys to help us along this LONG bumpy road to finally getting this house built! And as my son, Jack Gray, would say, "THANKS A LATTE!"