La Cucina di Retro Bungalow

I suppose it's time for a look-see of some of our mostly finished work.

It seems like our task list for getting this place completely complete will never end.

I had fun designing Retro Bungalow's kitchen.
So, WELCOME!
Let me show you around a little.

First things first -

our sweet Madimo was here yesterday.

She left this beautiful scattering of toys on our kitchen floor.

No, seriously...it really is beautiful!

Our children's children are picking up where their parents left off

when they grew up, leaving childhood behind.

Like I said, it's a beautiful thing.

A few details:

I chose Benjamin Moore's "Cloud White" (OC-130) for our cabinet color.

Choosing the correct shade of white was particularly stressful for me,

but thanks to wonderful guidance from the Houzz.com community that

quickly responded to my inquiries, and advise from Jason at 

Weber paint and glass, I am thrilled with my choice.

I was aiming for clean and classic white, but with a warm hue.

Nailed it!

The perimeter counter tops are honed "Absolute Black" granite.

I was adamant that I did not want polished granite;
 it's much too shiny for my taste.

The island top is "Super White" quartzite, which was more than our budget plan,

but Sherrie, with Precision Granite, called me one morning and
told me she'd gotten a great deal on a beautiful slab. 

I grabbed it up, sight unseen.

I trust Sherrie like that.

The folks at Precision were great to work with.

Dean works for GE's healthcare division designing real-time surgical x-ray machines

and he gets screamin' deals on all GE products, so we went with their 

Monogram series appliances.

So far we love them.

Our knobs, handles, pulls and light fixtures are all oil rubbed bronze.

We're still missing two knobs for the leaded glass doors on the left.

Our cabinet crew was out here on half a dozen occasions working on install.

I asked Raymond one day if that was typical.

He said it definitely wasn't, but our kitchen and master bath were

particularly detailed.

Hmmm...okay, I guess.

I think what he was really saying was that I'm particularly detailed and fussy.

But Raymond, Devin and Matt are great guys and I feel like they're almost family now.

Don't know whether or not they appreciate that like I do though.

Our island is made of natural walnut and fashioned after the classic
craftsman look that goes so beautifully with our shaker style cabinets.
I ordered the craftsman style knobs and switch and outlet covers from
House of Antique Hardware.

We still have the under-cabinet and upper cabinet lighting to install.
That'll happen down the road in a few months when things slow down a bit.
The little black rooster that sits on the shelf of the range hood looks silly
and out of scale, but it's there for now to show that there's actually a shelf there.
I have a gorgeous copper platter saved to my Amazon wish list
that I look forward to displaying on that shelf when I break down and actually buy it.
And after living for a few days with the random things I put
in the glass-faced upper cabinets
(because I found two more unopened boxes of decor items in the garage),
I'm taking it all out as soon as I get a chance and driving it to DI.
I've made so many trips to DI lately it's laughable.
Or just down-right disgusting.
I've decided on the tile for our kitchen backsplash
and I'm SO EXCITED about it,
but we won't get to that detail for a little while.

One more little side note:
If you look back through the photos here,
you'll notice that there is a pleated shade in the kitchen window.
We just had Levolor's "Designer Color" pleated shades in "Cream"
 installed throughout the upstairs.
I do not like curtains at all, so those were easy to rule out.
And I know that plantation shutters have been quite the hot trend lately,
but they haven't really appealed to me.
They look nice from the outside, but in my opinion,
not so much from the inside.
That's just my personal preference, of course.
Two, or two and a half inch, blinds were out of the question because
I put so much thought into configuring our windows that I did not
want to detract from them with all those horizontal lines.
Plantation shutters, of course, would have presented the same problem.
If I had my druthers, we wouldn't have window coverings at all!

So, there you have it -
La Cucina di Retro Bungalow.
It'll continue to evolve over time, but I figured it was time to
show y'all around anyway.

Oh, and...here's where we were in all this craziness last year at his time!

Thanks for stoppin' by.
Have a happy, wonderful week, my friends.