Ladies and gentlemen we have a finished KITCHEN!

The kitchen is DONE!! What a process this has been! I couldn’t be happier with the end result and it absolutely blows my mind what Atom designed and created with his own hands with zero help. He is seriously so incredibly talented and amazes me every day what he is able to do. I’m one lucky lady!

I filmed a live video this past Saturday afternoon and I’ll include the YouTube link *here* if you would like to watch it and get more info than is here in this post.

When we ripped up the carpet in this section of the big open room on the second floor to finish the original wood flooring, I couldn’t picture a kitchen being here. Because it was just a 20×16 foot giant open space. In hindsight we should have totally waited to actually finish the wood flooring until after the kitchen was completed because after all of the concrete grinding, sanding, mudding and painting was done we have to finish them all over again. Live & learn. That should be our motto for this entire building.

I’ve shown tons in-progress photos in other blog posts I’ve made previously so I didn’t want to spend too much time on the progress photos & jump right in to the finished product. If you are new to the blog I would encourage you to go back a bit if you’d like to see more of the progress photos.

OK HERE IT IS!

This is my coffee/tea counter & cabinet & the wood top was hand routed by Atom. I can store all of my Irish teas, coffee & mugs as well as my electric tea kettle underneath.

If you know Atom, you know that he likes to create things that are original and unique and this kitchen is the epitome of that. With the exception of the coffee cabinet and 2 smaller cabinets in the corner, every cabinet door is attached to a custom pull out cart. He had this vision to where the carts could be easily pulled out and moved around the kitchen. At first I was skeptical when he was drawing up all of the plans but once I saw one built I was in love and obsessed with how functional they are! Here is our spice cart next to the stove.

We had someone ask us why he have just a regular sized stove in such a large kitchen and why didn’t we get a larger one? We purchased the set of appliances shortly after moving here and it was long before we started building or even drawing up plans for the kitchen. Regardless, I didn’t want a huge stove upstairs. We have a 12 burner stove in the commercial kitchen downstairs so if we need to cook for an army we are already set!

On the other side of the stove are many more of the pull-outs and these ones are the same size so they can be switched around if we want to.

I’m still trying to figure out how to decorate the kitchen. Decorating is not my forte and I will freely admit that. But thank goodness for Pinterest, Hobby Lobby and some friends who are interior designers! I’m going for a sort of country theme and I’m going to take my time finding the right pieces to compliment without being too much. I’ll be hitting up some local antique shops in the near future for sure! The small vintage scale on the shelf in this photo was found down in the commercial kitchen. I’m sure I’ll find other vintage pieces to add from the downstairs kitchen as well.

Atom built this giant long cabinet to fit exactly between the pillar in the corner and the tall pantry. When he and our neighbor lifted it into place they realized that the wall behind is not flat and is slightly bowed. After some quick thinking and adjustments (and a couple extra 2x4s) they were able to get it anchored into place. It actually ended up working out better because it allowed for the under cabinet lighting to be hidden between the cabinet and the wall for a pretty neat effect. I also haven’t figured out what to put on top yet either. The floor cabinet next to the tall pantry is another pull out that contains our trash and recycling containers.

Underneath the 6×8 ft island is more storage space than we know what to do with. That seems to be an ongoing theme (and joke) of ours since moving into a 20,000 sq ft home. I am kind of obsessed with the raskog carts from ikea so in keeping with the cart theme we purchased 6 of them and they fit both here underneath on one side and also in front of the shelves inside the tall pantry. This photo was taken before the doors were attached and you can see both the shelves and how the raskog carts fit.

On the other side of the island are 4 more HUGE roller carts for larger items and we have no idea what else yet. Haha! This one has our kitchen-aid mixer, air fryer, iced tea maker, instant pot and grilled cheesus sandwich press. The rest are empty.

Out Bengal cat Karen left her mark on the end of the island when Atom was mudding over screw holes. #dammitkaren. We totally didn’t sand them off & just painted over them. Gives it character and a story to tell!

Now onto the island. The statement piece and my favorite part of the kitchen (ok it’s tied with the popcorn machine my grandparents sent us). I was pretty bummed that it was snowing and super gloomy on Saturday when I took these photos and did the live video because it doesn’t show how truly spectacular it is. If you don’t remember, we ordered 18 lbs of raw labradorite directly from Madagascar and also added 5 lbs of amethyst pieces to the concrete to give it flashes of color. Labradorite is my absolute favorite stone and we wanted to give the island even more of a “wow” factor. The island itself weighs about 1200 lbs and took 19 bags of concrete to make. What a day that was when we poured it all! To add more dimension to the top Atom hand painted this gorgeous teal blue vein with acid stain and the labradorite is concentrated generally around the vein. What I really love about the labradorite is that no matter where you are standing you see bright flashes of color from the stones which changes as you move around the island. They also change depending on the lighting. Here are some photos from Saturday:

Now here are some photos that I took yesterday afternoon. My favorite time of the day is late afternoon because that’s when the sun comes in through the window and makes the whole island pop and sparkle!!! The entire island seems to come alive and it really is a statement piece!

All in all this kitchen has been a labor of love and we are pretty damn proud of it. I can’t take the credit though- that all belongs to Atom.