My New Kitchen!!!

It's finally here! So I love to watch the makeover shows like on HGTV. One thing they don't show you is how long it takes to do the last pieces and CLEAN UP! Crazy! I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned to make sure all the renovations could shine. Well, I have to say now that I have taken the photos, I can get back to way we "really" live LOL!

Just a quick rundown of the kitchen makeover. The before pictures show a number of older appliances. The only appliance we bought brand new was the dishwasher. The stove was a used one, the fridge was used and there's a confession coming up about that!

Summary of changes (almost all was done by Pete):

Moved refrigerator over to the opposite wall (plumbing: moving the water over for ice maker)
Moved tall cabinet from the wall where the fridge would be placed to the opposite wall. (switch-a-roo) This was tough because the cabinets were installed with nails, not screws. big nails. Big nails that we had to use a chisel to get to each nail head to pry it out with a crow bar (there were 18 nails in that cabinet!).
Built open shelves where the fridge used to be.
Added random miss-matched cabinets (some from my mom's work, some from Habitat restore, some re-purposed from other areas)
Pete built the largest cabinet (the peninsula one at the end from scratch)
Widened the doorway to the pantry for more access and light
Added cabinet above fridge which was actually a combination of two shorter cabinets that Pete connected and added trim to make look like one single cabinet.
Built doors for the cabinets that didn't have them or that didn't match the rest of the kitchen. I think he built maybe 8 new doors?
Chipped off the grayish tile backsplash.
Pete built this crazy-cool machine that creates a vortex cone to trap particles (like dust from sanding) and uses a shop vac to power it.
Sanded cabinets, sanded walls, sanded floor, sanded trim
Added an additional two receptacles to keep the house to code
Repaired, re-puttyed and sanded the walls.
Built new counter tops from plywood and added supports to a 12 inch overhang so we could still have a small eat-in bar type area.
Made backsplash boards for all the counters.
Covered or recovered all the counter tops with new laminate.
Everyone in our family spend time painting (I was painting cabinet doors while going into labor, and while I was in my resting time after birth, my mom, sister, dad, mother-in-law and who know who all else were painting second coats of paint.
Installed new doors on the pantry.
Pete and my dad installed a new garbage disposal because the old one suddenly began leaking straight out the side of it.
Pete installed a new sink spigot and handles. He wasn't able to do the garbage disposal at the same time because it didn't begin leaking until just a few weeks ago.
Attempted to level the floor from underneath the house using floor jacks. It was a lot of work but unfortunately didn't work and left a few extra cracks in the ceiling.
Pete sealed up a portion of the kitchen, wore a tyvex suit and scraped up a section of old floor tiles that were probably asbestos. It was a bout a 6 x 10 area. He sweated off several pound (not kidding)
Installed the new CORK FLOORS! Yay!
Installed new locks on the doors.
Installed a new range hood. Tried painting the old one, but it just looked awful.
I painted everything again LOL! Not really but I went back over the edges, painted the ceiling and painted the additional trim that Pete added.
I disassembled the ceiling fans and painted the brass parts a silver brushed satin.
I took off the door knobs of the two half doors that go into the kitchen and replaced them with smaller metal pulls. I also painted the pulls black (they were re-purposed from the doors that used to be in the living room that we took down.
Repaired the refrigerator.
There was probably not a surface that was not painted, sanded or scraped. We emptied the massive refrigerator multiple times (for repair, to fix the floor, install the cork, etc). My dining room was a "holding place" off and on for the whole 20 months we've been working on this.
I still need to make curtains and recover the seats on the bar stools.