Today is special.  I have a busy/scary/exciting day planned here in Hawaii, so I wanted to make sure I posted something… worthwhile? … to tide you over until I get my land legs back.

I’ve been showing you bits and pieces of our finished kitchen since I started this blog.

I’ve shown you how we picked the appliances, and how we tiled our backsplash.  I covered the trials and tribulations of repairing  a brand new floor.  I’ve showed you how we picked our granite.

But now it’s time to finally unveil our (almost) finished kitchen.  (**NOTE:  I still have to paint ALL the trim, and we still have some major accessorizing to do! A little decor will make a big difference.)

But first (psyche!), let’s take a look at a couple of the befores once more.  (You can find a lot of the planning and layout details here.)

This was the view of the dining when you first looked into the kitchen from the living room:

It didn’t take us long to replace that monstrous fandelier:

And here is how it looked when we replaced it with a generic (and resale-friendly) fixture from Lowe’s:

But everything was still white!  Here’s how it looks now:

Here it is a bit closer:

We still need to swag the light fixture to center it over the table.  Unfortunately, the hubs shortened the chain back when he first installed it.

We also still need some decor, but at least the large, empty wall behind the table no longer looks like this:

Here’s another shot from when you first walk in, just to the right of the dining area before:

And after:

A little further to the right before:

And after:

The fridge was in an awful location before:

Here’s that same angle now:

The door on the end goes to the garage (please ignore the as-of-yet unpainted trim), and the cabinet on the outside of the peninsula holds the dog food, treats, and other doggie necessities:

The stove wall before:

Now there is much less wasted space:

We have a nice work surface on either side of the stove (with baking dishes and spices stored in the drawers on the left and pots, pans and cooking utensils stored in the drawers on the right):

The stove cooking area is flanked by a large food pantry on the left…

…and the french-door refrigerator on the right (it’s not recessed because a counter-depth fridge was several hundred dollars more expensive, and we did not want to recess the full-size fridge into our load-bearing wall):

(Sorry about the dog butt.)

The extra large drawers in the peninsula hold our plates, bowls, utensils and storage containers.  (Have I mentioned how much I love our drawers?)

Oops, I guess I didn’t close the dishwasher all the way.

My favorite cabinet (for obvious reasons):

Stained alder cabinets with furniture-style toe-kicks:

Pull-down faucet:

Cabinet hardware:

Simple ceramic backsplash:

And coast green granite:

Well?

Is it okay?  Awful?  I know it’s an improvement from what we had, but I know my design skills (or lack, thereof) leave something to be desired.  The functionality of the new space is perfect, but I don’t know… there’s a lot of dark wood here.

I’m hoping to lighten this up with some window treatments and other accessories.

Any ideas?  What do you think?