Just a Year Ago...

Just a year ago, despite fighting endless snow, we were completely thrilled to see a house taking shape. The first floor exterior walls were just beginning to go up and I *thought* then I could imagine how it would all turn out.

And then.....our first Thanksgiving in a very sunny house. Exactly what we planned for but couldn't even imagine -- how warm and cozy it would feel. Our staircase is not finished yet -- Sean plans to do that himself with a railing design of his own. For now we have what we call the contractor special in order to meet code. We also have not installed trim around the windows since we are doing that ourselves too. We even plan to use wood from trees cut down (only where necessary for the house) or ones that had fallen. We had some sawn into boards and it is being kiln-dried right now.

We chose natural cherry cabinets but really liked the look of white countertops (ours are Caesarstone) and the stainless steel appliances. We have since replaced our mismatched island stools too!

I couldn't get the same angles of the kitchen from the Healthy Home Plans site, but you can still see the changes that we made in the photos below.

Our house is in the middle of a wooded lot unlike the original that had close neighbors, so we were able to eliminate the cupboards and wall hood over the stove in order to have more windows.  Since I am only 5' 1"  tall I tend to find upper cabinets to be useless. We also eliminated the upper cabinets on the left side of the sink. (I hope to have some sort of open shelving there eventually.) I wasn't sure if I liked the shelving at the end of the island so I decided to eliminate that also with the thought that I could add it later if I wanted to. I find that now we tend to pull up a stool there for extra seating so I'm glad we did leave it out.

We thought the light fixtures over the island were too heavy for our personal style so we opted for smaller cobalt blue glass fixtures. We liked the farm sink design and fell in love with a sapphire colored sink to add color and break up the whiteness of the countertops. It was one of the first things we bought for the house and it sat in the box in our living room for months for lack of a better place to store it safely!

**Idea home photos courtesy of Healthy Home Plans.  Feel free to email me or comment with questions about products that we used instead.