The Final Kitchen

I earlier did a work-in-progress post on the kitchen counters and cabinets; now I'm happy to report the final result! First, a couple photos:





Here are the additions since the last post:

• Lighting: We choose the Gregg Suspension by Foscarini for the three pendant lights over the island. This was a bit of a splurge for us, but we loved the organic dinosaur egg shape. We choose to have a consistent theme in the house where all our non-recessed fixtures are pure white shapes of glass illuminated from within, without any adornments of any kind. This is also a good opportunity to mention the Castore Suspension by Artemide that we put over the nearby dining table. We managed to get a floor model at the Seattle Artemide store half off!
  

• Kitchen Faucet: We used the Interaktiv S by Hansgrohe. This was another fixture that we bought on Ebay at a significant discount; I think Ebay is a good choice for a few key, expensive items, IF you have a good nose for ferreting out dodgy sellers.
• Appliances: I already mentioned the BlueStar range and kitchen sink in the earlier post. We then added Bosch appliances: a French door refrigerator, a combination convection microwave/oven, and a dishwasher. Choosing a convection oven was key for me, and I'm already loving the browning I can get from it. Since we didn't have room for two ovens, I choose a microwave that can double as an oven. I ideally wanted a microwave that could convection broil, as well, since I often want to hit something with a quick broil while the oven is roasting at a lower temp, but alas, the price bump for this feature was too much for me. For ventilation, we have a Broan internal blower up in the roof and a Broan 36" hood above the range. I was hoping for a bigger whoosh of air from the 1,100 CFM, but it works reasonably well none the less.
• Backsplash: Behind the cooktop we went with two solid pieces of back-painted tempered glass above and below the upper cabinets. This choice was more expensive than we wanted (almost $30 a sq ft. installed). But, it kept the gray monolithic look of the interior plaster on the other side of the wall, and is very easy to clean (which I've already taken advantage of, since I'm still getting used to the real heat of the Bluestar and caused a mini grease fountain the other day).

We also have a large pantry behind the kitchen for additional storage. Anyways, that's the wrap on our design of the kitchen! It turned out great, with one small caveat. The black veneer of the cabinets is easy to ding or scratch, and these show up very easily on the reflective black.