Kitchen day 49: And then we feasted

Let's see.  When I last wrote, we had a mostly-functional kitchen, minus the trim, range hood, and refrigerator. It looked something like this, plus the counter tops (apparently my picture-taking became selective towards the end of last week; aka, selectively focusing on completed things, which makes looking back difficult!)

This weekend, Justin made me a window put in the microwave range hood.  Projects that involve cutting holes in the exterior of the house naturally make both of us pretty nervous, but I'm really proud of his persistence and creativity in solving the problems that cropped up.

He also hung all of the trim (another annoying project), but both paid off big time!  We rescued the refrigerator from the back porch, where it spent the better part of the last two months, and I focused on unpacking boxes from the basement, rediscovering wedding gifts I had forgotten (based on their exile in the basement pre-kitchen storage), and cleaning just about every surface I could find.

Things like washing dishes make me tear up with happiness.

We've got a few more touch-up things to do (like adding outlet covers, which always seems to take us forever).  We also will be getting two bar stools for the peninsula, and a step stool to take care of this issue:

And I'll need to take care of this pile of things:

Probably 80% of that pile is food that belongs in a pantry.  Since we moved the refrigerator from that corner, we're thinking of buying a free standing cabinet; something like this one from amazon.

                                            

But those finishing touches haven't stopped us from enjoying our kitchen.  It makes me happy to be able to cook for my man, and he reports that he likes to eat :)  Here's our table setting for our celebratory kitchen's done dinner.  (I had a lot of fun with my "new" dishes)  For those who are wondering, the menu was steak, mashed potatoes, zucchini casserole, salad, and homemade bread.

During renovations, we'd share a glass for dinner (partly because that was usually only find one clean one, but also because it meant less work to clean up), so now it feels luxurious to have a salad plate and a dinner plate ~ and put them all in the dishwasher!  Going from washing dishes in the bathroom and cooking all meals on the grill to having a functioning kitchen feels like we went from living in black and white to living in color.  And I'm loving it!  :)