Getting Closer to Finishing Our Kitchen

When we first looked at this house in 2011, I did not notice the taupe ceramic tile in the kitchen so I had visions of a black, white and grey kitchen with accents of red.  I have a few of the chefs kitchen collectables so I thought is would make for a festive kitchen.  How could I not notice the colour of the kitchen?  This is our sixth purchased permanent residence, seventh if you count our vacation home.  The rule of thumb has always been anything decorative can be changed.  The more important features of the house like location,  structure, layout, size, and design become the focus over paint, wall paper and tile. 

This kitchen has really changed since we bought the house.  We painted the walls a deep burgundy (colour matched to our dinnerware), closed in the bulkhead, added a custom made bookshelf with accessory lighting,  added custom made trim around the ceiling,  replaced the dishwasher,installed a natural gas range and hung panel drapes.   There's still a few more things to do!

The kitchen was originally painted a cool taupe with deep taupe/almost black tones marble floor, warm oak cabinets and a warm taupe ceramic tile back splash and counter top.  There was the absolutely most disgusting white range hood.  By disgusting I mean so coated with grease there was no way it could be cleaned and copious amounts of cold air came in whenever the wind picked up.  I actually placed a piece of tin foil on the filter to block the cold air from coming in!  Not only that, it didn't match the kitchen and I like things to match not just in one room but throughout the entire house so there are no jarring eye moments.  The colours I picked for this house are white, black, deep burgundy, taupe, olive green, navy blue and lots of wood.  Each room flows into the next with elements of each colour in every room or there will be when I'm finished decorating.  Back to the range hood.

We tend to be very frugal even when it comes to interior decorating so are avid DIYers who are quite willing to wait for a sale.  There are times though that I will change something just because it gets to the point of being an eyesore.  The range hood was that and beyond that.   It wasn't that the range hood didn't match it was the thing was so disgusting not to mention cold air poured down through it so costing us heating dollars, I finally had enough.  So, I took the measurements and as you can see we were restricted in width and depth thanks to the way they installed the tile.  Honestly, we found out really early after moving here the previous owners never thought about anything in the kitchen ever having to replace anything!  I went online to find a range hood, settling on a Broan-NuTone HDN64 series.  It isn't a fancy range hood but it vents outside and matches the kitchen decor and we were restricted as to the size of range hood we could use.  It has a high and low setting for both the fan and light.  I would have liked a slim line range hood but we would have been left with a awkward gap between the tile and range hood. 

It took my husband about 10 minutes to replace the range hood at a total cost of $79.99 CDN.  The installation went smoothly.  The total install will be on my homemaking blog shortly.  We discovered that the baffle was missing on the old range hood.  That's something that should not break so we figure they took the range hood off when installing the ceramic tile and accidentally broke the baffle.  That's why the cold air poured in not to mention allowing heated indoor air to escape. 

Next up on our kitchen upgrades:  We need to fill in the gap left on the floor with replacing the dishwasher.  We found tile in the garage to match so our friend who is doing the custom woodworking in the house is going to cut it for us when he is out finishing the cabinets.  We are going to tone done the yellow in the cabinets to match the new bulkhead.  The stainless steel sink and rip off faucet (rip off because the previous owner took the one we actually saw with the house with them) are being replaced.  The sink will be black but I'm not sure what yet.  The microwave oven is a quandary.  It has all the bells and whistles on it for 1100 W power (bought for $69 at a liquidation centre) and is used at most a couple of times a month.  I'd love to go to an over the range model like we have in our vacation home but my large canner won't fit under it.  My husband wants to replace the ceramic counter top with granite.  At some point in the very near future our kitchen may be finally finished!