A kitchen in progress!

Happy Saturday!  Today, I want to show you what I've done with my kitchen so far.  Remember this before photo I showed you in the last post???

I originally thought my kitchen could be saved and the kitchen cabinets could be refinished.  However, after walking through the house with the home inspector, he noted:

1. multiple cracked floor tiles
2. half of the kitchen drawers didn't pull out straight
3. the granite wasn't properly installed
4. the range hood was hard-wired into the electrical outlet (not sure how dangerous this was, but all the contractors who came by said it was bad)
5. the bay window above the sink had noticeable water damage
6. the dishwasher located in the island wasn't functioning properly due to bad electrical and plumbing work

So....after reading the home inspection report, I decided it would be safer for me to demo everything to the studs and have licensed professionals reinstall everything correctly.  The demo crew came in and did their thing and after 4 hours we were left with this...

Then a few days later I had my Ikea cabinets installed by my contractor.  I built the actual cabinets myself by following their directions, but I left the job of the actual cabinet installation to the pros.  I opted for Ikea cabinets with their Lidingo style drawers and doors.  Also, I originally wanted my entire backsplash to be solely made up of subway tiles, but my contractor suggested adding a strip of accent tiles with red tones to tie in the backsplash with the color of my granite.

And now, the kitchen looks like this...

and this...

In the end, I am very happy with the results.  I was able to remodel my kitchen with the look that I wanted and still stay within the budget I set for myself.  However, I don't feel like the kitchen is done yet.  I'm on the hunt for cool kitchen wall art.  Let me know if you see anything that would suit the walls of this kitchen!