The BEST Kitchen (N)ever

Update: Since posting this, we've added a red brick backsplash and the most gorgeous hammered chrome Pottery Barn cabinet hardware. Check out our new kitchen photos.

I've been fretting about our new kitchen for a little while now. Since...2011? With our open floor plan, the kitchen is the main focal point of the home. You see it when you walk through the front door, when you're in the living room, from the dining room, etc. You can't miss it. So, my thinking is that if the kitchen sucks, the house sucks. And when you've been designing the house since 2011, that really can't be an option.

We've also been determined not to build a boring house. Ours should be unique! Does unique = sucky? Whenever I'd describe our kitchen to someone, there would always be at least one detail that confused/worried/frustrated them. A sink with horses? Mirrored cabinets 12 feet high?! In my mind, everything looks amazing. But how would these wild design ideas work in real life?

Last week, we finally got to find out.

Soon there will be not one, but TWO dishwashers. Sadly though, neither is self-loading. You just know that's going to be invented a week after we move in.

The white backdrop makes fun holiday decorating a breeze.

We absolutely LOVE our hammered copper sink, though I suspect it's not the name-brand one the eBay seller claimed. The horses looked like majestic stallions in the listing and these have more of the My Little Pony quality you'd expect from counterfeit artisans across the border. Still, the sink seems solid.

Plus, it was a screamin' deal.

Our drawers have been redone since my previous kitchen blog post. Don't they look so much better?

Also, I should note that the grout color on the floor is actually much darker than shown here. Everything is just so dusty!

This is all still a work in progress. Crown molding will be installed on top of each cabinet soon and Sexy Nerd is going to add a red brick backsplash from countertop to ceiling after we move in. I have no idea what color hardware to choose.

And my mirrored doors! I've been so worried about this wall, certain one day that it's going to be stunningly beautiful and certain the next it will be a disaster. Below them is going to be a library bar for a ladder. They were actually built incorrectly, as the design specified 8 small doors, not 4 small and 2 large, but I think I'm happy with the look as is. They bounce the light around and reflect the wood ceiling.

I love how our kitchen is turning out, but what kind of professional, "highly recommended" custom cabinet builder builds the wrong number of doors? 6 versus 8 is kindergarten math.

Apparently, one of the crew members became so fed up while installing our cabinets that they stabbed this one. The cut goes all the way through! I'm sure it will be repaired or replaced. I'm also sure I'm glad we waited until the cabinets had been installed to visit the house that day.

That's enough kitchen photos for now.

What's that, you say? I didn't even show you a photo of the entire kitchen?

Hmmm, thinks Sexy Nerd. Should we show some more photos?

Ta da!

He's also pondering that it would sure be nice not to see a dumpster through our windows anymore. More than a year in, I bet the neighbors feel the same.

That goes double for the Porta Potty at the end of our cul-de-sac.

It's all coming together. We've even had a little party already.

My mom, shown here, was so excited when she saw our kitchen for the first time that she even used the word "freaking". As in, it looks freaking gorgeous. And she hates white kitchens. And she does not say freaking.

When cooking in the kitchen, you're still part of the crowd in the living room. Just wait until Sexy Nerd gets his chandeliers installed. He built them himself and they're 7 feet tall!

Also, perhaps I should have tidied up the island before snapping this photo.

Here is the view when you enter the house through the foyer, albeit not quite so crooked. Unless maybe you've been enjoying a margarita on our patio.

There's still a lot to do, which I suppose goes without saying after posting the previous photo of a de-drywalled (for the second time!) foyer. Sexy Nerd is going to build an island that will act as a divider between the two rooms. It's going to seat...well, I'm not sure how many yet, but you'll have the option to sit facing the kitchen or the living room. You'll even have the option to sit facing the front yard or the back - the island is going to be on beautiful wheels! If anyone out there knows where I can actually buy beautiful wheels, please let me know ASAP. Although my husband is handy, his design sense can be a bit questionable sometimes. If I don't find beautiful wheels for the new island soon, he's going with black rubber ones. "They're the most practical choice," he insists.

Bah.

There are also a few cabinet problems that need to be corrected. The biggest is that the range is not centered under the hood, which was so important that we even sent an email to the cabinet builder months ago, stressing that it absolutely must be centered. We stated that his design appeared to be off by exactly one inch. It seemed like a silly, overkill sort of thing to do at the time. Surely someone who builds custom cabinets for a living has enough common sense and math skills to center the focal point of the kitchen with the vault of the ceiling, right? But here we are, with the range off by exactly one inch. The range is haphazardly dropped beneath the hood and there is noticeably more countertop space to the left than the right. The builder and the foreman must not have been paying any attention to our house. Have I mentioned we broke ground June, 2016?

Really, the actual biggest problem (the biggest, biggest) is that there doesn't seem to be any possible way to correct this mistake, short of ripping out the kitchen cabinets and countertops and starting over. I don't see that happening.

It's complicated.