Our Kitchen Inspiration

Hello barbies! I hope you all had fabulous Valentine's Days. Hubby and I spent the holiday in Chicago, which was FREEZING COLD but fabulous. Here we are at the legendary Gino's East, eating famous Chicago deep dish pizza. :)

Today marks THREE WEEKS until we move into the BDH (aghhh! pinch me!) and one of the most notable pieces of recent progress is our kitchen. Our oven hood is getting finalized, our backsplash was just completed, appliances (except for the refrigerator for whatever reason) are in place and the builder even took the protective plastic off the granite. As we begin to see it take it's final shape, I thought it would be fun to share some of the kitchen inspiration pictures that got us here in the first place. I always knew I wanted antique white cabinets and creamy granite in my barbie dream kitchen, but these pictures helped fill out the rest. They especially helped confirm our decision to do a dark center island, which we really think helps anchor the otherwise light room.

I love the appliques and all the detail in this one. Also loving the giant island.

  

I hate this chandelier, but the backsplash, granite and cabinet combo are gorgeous.

Love the display section at the end of the island. We ultimately decided on a similar upgrade through our builder. I also like the granite edge profile.

Our paint color is very similar to this, which I think compliments the slightly lighter cabinets well.

I love EVERYTHING about this, except for the absence of a giant island chandelier. We're decorating with the same cream and black checkered pattern. I've already bought a few pieces in that pattern for our glass cabinets at the end of the island.

Although those images are certainly a tough act to follow, thanks to all of their fabulous inspiration, we now have this almost-complete kitchen!

 Our new backsplash and our Colonial Gold granite.

 

 

I know you're all probably noticing that the most important item - the island chandelier - is missing. This is because we didn't buy it through the builder and we haven't bought it on our own yet. For months we've been stalking this one and we'll probably break down and buy it this week or next. We probably would have bought it sooner but we've had SO many house expenses lately that we're kinda having to stagger them.  This is the one that I'm 95% sure will ultimately be perched above the island though.

For context, here's our casual china pattern that will be going in the BDH kitchen. We got 8 place settings of this Lenox Butler's Pantry for our wedding in 2010 and are still absolutely in love with it.

 

And it certainly wouldn't be a good BDH blog post without some pictures of the latest treasures I've picked up for the house.

I bought these two black Williams Sonoma pot holders with a gift card I got for Christmas. Loving them.

Candle holders for the island that I bought in December in Texas, but forgot to post.

As always, thanks for reading barbies! 21 DAYS UNTIL MOVE-IN DAY!! :)