Wandering into the Land of Home Improvement

When we bought this house we knew we wanted, wait scratch that, needed to do the kitchen. While the house had the space and a layout that worked for us, and seemed to be in reasonable shape, we knew the kitchen was inadequate.

Both my husband and I cook. The kids need to learn how to cook. We need space that will let all of us work together without stepping on each other. This wasn't going to cut it for us:

One side of the kitchen

The other side of the kitchen

So we planned and thought and made lots of drawings, and then went looking for a contractor. We decided we weren't even going to try to do the work ourselves since we wanted to take out the load bearing wall between the kitchen and the dining room.
After a few quotes and interviews and poking around on Angie's List we decided on a contractor, and ordered cabinets through him, since they had the style I really wanted. I could have gone with slightly cheaper cabinets by ordering them from Lowes or Home Depot, but then I would have had to have some shaker style kitchen and I really wanted something like this:

Corsica cabinets by Bellmont

To save money, and because I really wanted to have a hand in creating the kitchen, I'm going to be installing these resilient self stick tiles:

Roman Travertine tiles by Trafficmaster/ceramica

Get this, they're groutable vinyl tiles! I can't wait to play. And yes, I am going to be installing 12 x 24 tiles. Probably in a brick pattern. I don't know why I've conceived a love of 12x 24 tiles, but I have.

We're going with a quartz countertop, in a basic black, and simple stainless handles with just a bit of a curve. 

Two huge sinks, because that has always been part of a dream kitchen for my husband. And I'm getting a range with a baking drawer, to make hosting big parties easier. Not that I do big parties all that often. But now my Mom will be able to have some piping hot acorn squash ready when she wants it on Thanksgiving. 

It's all supposed to be done well in time for Thanksgiving. I'm so excited. I can't wait!