As you know, I completely gutted my kitchen in October and now it’s almost done. I know, I KNOW *groan* – it’s the project that never ends!!!

Everything is in place… except one big thing: the sliding doors. We completely overlooked them when renovating the kitchen, probably because we knew it was a bigger job than we were ready to tackle alone. Then we got a call from the marketing department at Architectural Digest on behalf of Marvin Windows & Doors – they offered to work with us to replace them! Oh happy day!

Just an example of some of the gorgeous sliding doors from Marvin. Photo courtesy of Marvin Windows & Doors.

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Well, hello there. Our kitchen renovation has been complete now for about a month. We installed some new track lighting and added dimmers, so now all that’s left is for us to start cooking! And that’s exactly what we’ve been trying to do. Trying being the key word here, as neither one of us is all that talented when it comes to the kitchen. I can boil a mean pasta, but that’s about it. I told Electrolux that no appliance was going to help me become a better cook, but I’m eating my words now — literally.

Many of you had asked me at the beginning of this project to tell you more about our appliances, so here you go! Our kitchen is equipped with Professional Series Electrolux ICON® appliances, and I’ve just been completely schooled on them all, so I feel like I can adequately talk about their features and my experience with them.

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I am pretty excited because we just installed the very last thing in the kitchen and, technically, it’s complete! What a relief. Now it’s time to get everything photographed so I can share it with you in all its glory. But before that happens, I wanted to show you our tile, which was installed a few weeks ago.

When we were deciding on a backsplash, I had a hard time with it because I wanted something that wasn’t too trendy or too boring that also fit nicely into our mid-century modern house. I thought glass tiles in a stacked pattern would be a great middle ground, so I contacted modwalls for some size and color samples (above).

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FINALLY!

Maybe you’ve had full overlay doors before with no handles or pulls and you’re familiar with the pain of trying to open them every day. Needless to say, I was getting kind of stabby. But, just when I thought I was going to pull my hair out, they finally arrived and we installed them last weekend. They rock.

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It’s been a while since I shared the progress of our kitchen. Since having a baby, things actually slowed down quite a bit, and then… well, kind of stalled.

The timeline came to a screeching halt when we discovered the flooring we ordered to fill in the gaps between where the old and new cabinets sat was the wrong size… we got 3/8″ instead of 1/2″. However, we tried to make do by putting a cork underlayment underneath the floor boards before gluing them in place. At first, it was perfect, but after a day or two, the boards began to sink down and the cork made them feel spongy. So, we were back to square one. Luckily we were able to return the flooring and purchase new 1/2″ boards. However, the new ones we ordered ended up getting lost in transit and took a few extra weeks to arrive. They’re FINALLY in.

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As you know, we’re knee-deep in a kitchen renovation, currently waiting for our tile to arrive. One of the things we desperately hate looking at is our ugly dish drying rack / drainer. Despite having a dishwasher, we still often find ourselves hand-washing some dishes, so we still need a drying rack. Did you know there are modern dish drying rack options out there? I had no idea until I started doing some investigating. Here are some of the great ones I found — which one would you choose?

Above is one of my favorites – Black + Blum’s High&Dry rack.

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Because I went into labor the evening of the cabinet installation, I don’t have photos of them being installed. However, I’ll get back to talking about them a little later on. I want to focus on one of my favorite parts of the kitchen — the countertop.

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Last week I shared the demolition of our kitchen and told you all about our insane timeline. Now it’s time for the pretty stuff. Jamie created our kitchen design after having just one conversation with me about what I wanted. We talked about layout, colors, materials and style. It didn’t take her long to come up with something that Jordan and I could happily agree on.

Click on the images below for a larger view.

First, we discussed moving things around, perhaps putting the fridge where the wall oven was, but that wasn’t feasible because we wouldn’t be able to open one of the fridge doors because of the wall. Then we talked about putting the cooktop in the island, but that would require a hood and additional electrical work, which we decided was too much of a hassle. We didn’t really have any issues with where things were located, so we decided to keep the existing layout.

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Demo day happened to be the day that I was 38 weeks pregnant.

OK, before you all freak out, I’m just posing in this photo. As much as I wanted to help, I wasn’t much help at all. I actually spent most of the day with my feet up. But, thanks to friends and family, we were able to demo the kitchen and remove all the old drywall in just one day.

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Deciding to start a kitchen renovation while being 9 months pregnant isn’t for everyone. But if you’re crazy like me, then you might think it sounds like a fun challenge. Luckily, I have an amazing support team of people around me who have lent a hand to help make my dream kitchen a reality, including a very handy and supportive husband, an amazing interior designer and close friend Jamie Adjemian, and a great group of partners.

But before I get into all the details, let me give you a tour of the kitchen before we took a hammer to it.

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