Remodeled Kitchen

Welcome to my remodeled kitchen! This blog is long overdue for an update. I know, I know. Actually, the remodeled kitchen was finished back in January 2010. Then, we thought that our living room and dining room needed a remodeling. It was in the 1970s style and we didn't do any remodeling since we moved in (1993). So we did that. Then, we thought our downstairs bathroom also needed a remodeling. Almost the entire house was still in 1970s style. So we did that. Then, we thought that our bedrooms and master bathroom really needed a remodeling (wall paper and paint were peeling). So we did that. Then, we thought our 1970s carpet desperately needed to be replaced. So we did that. There you go. This is how it is with remodeling. We started with one room and it just went on and on to the next rooms. In 2010 and a big part of 2011, I spent a lot of time working with contractors and painters. I don't know how many times I visited Lowes, Home Depot, and other appliances store. I was out of my habit of blogging. I became an interior decorator instead. It is now all DONE! :-)

Friends have been asking me about my blog and pictures of my new kitchen. Here they are. The fun of rebuilding my own kitchen was designing the work space, cabinets, colors, granite, etc. I picked the cabinet and other kitchen features, DH picked the granite.

Not all of the appliances were replaced to keep the cost down. I still kept my older stove, refrigerator, and dish washer. They are still working fine. They are not stainless steel but when we replace them we might choose stainless steel in the future. Our new range-hood is stainless steel. It is a powerful GE Monogram brand.

The other appliance we added was the microwave/convection oven/speed cook GE Profile Advantium. We love this one since we have always owned on-top-of-the-counter microwave. This one is a built-in one to free the counter space. It is also a combination of a microwave and convection oven for my cookies and bread baking. This oven has a bread-proofing feature I can use to raise my bread dough. The temperature is all controlled by a computer chip. I love it!


The kitchen features that I requested from our contractor were the ones that will make my cooking easier. It is more on the functional and not just aesthetic request. First, I need a lot of storage for spices, condiments bottles, and small kitchen appliances. DH says that he never met anyone owns so many different spices and condiments until he met me. Below is the condiments rack I ordered from the cabinet maker. It stores many bottles of condiments, sauces, and oil. I can pull out this rack to choose a condiment or sauce or oil I need.

Then, for my spices I asked for another pull-out shelves below to store my many spices.

I also asked for pull-out shelves like this one below to store my small kitchen appliances (food processor, juicer, panini maker, mixer, etc.). Contractor guaranteed that these shelves will support and hold heavy items. I have no problem so far, he was right. I love this feature!

For the corner areas of the kitchen, I asked for rotating shelves for my pots, pans, and baking pans. This kind of storage was also good for bulk storage for rice, flours, and grains. This particular one below is the top corner storage. I have 3 more bottom corner ones with rotating shelves.


The last feature I wanted to share is in the sink area. Our contractor suggested that the button to turn on and off our garbage disposal be moved near to our faucet. The silver button on the right of the faucet is now the button for the garbage disposal. Very convenient!

We also ask for a customized feature of a hot and room temperature filtered drinking water faucet (the smaller faucet below) to be installed here in the sink area. We constantly drink hot tea. I also use a lot of hot water to soak TVP, soy curls, beans, lentils, etc. so a constant hot water access is always needed. We use this water drinking faucet a lot. The room temperature water is also connected to the ice machine in our fridge. This is a feature that is definitely useful and worth it.


We also remodeled our dining room which is connected to the kitchen. I chose the colors, furniture, and decorations. It is now all updated to modern style and is not 1970s style anymore. All I can say that I am happy that it is ALL done. I can have my life back with more cooking and traveling without worrying that I need to go back to Lowes or Home Depot to exchange the shower head, cabinet knobs, or light switches. I admit that I will not do it again. We'll sell this one and buy a remodeled house. :-) Wowee, a relief indeed!