Mostly finished ... PICTURES!!!

We're almost finished with our addition -- at least the upstairs -- so I just have to share pictures! There are a lot here, because I have family out of state (including my mom and dad who saw the beginnings of the addition) who can't tour the new space, so this is for all y'all ...

The first thing I wanted to show is just the amount of space that is added to our kitchen. The first picture is a before picture -- our kitchen how it was, with me standing by the bar and Shayla sitting on the opposite counter. The second picture is the same -- me standing by the bar and Shayla sitting on the opposite counter:


Can you believe that? It's awesome! Everything from the nearest cabinet you see and beyond is new space. It's incredible to think how small our kitchen used to be ...

We have all been VERY excited about our new cabinets! We had a neighbor (Ryan Jensen for anyone thinking about cabinets!) do the cabinets. He and my bro Ryan went to cabinetry school together. My bro no longer does cabinets, but he said Ryan Jensen is amazing. He was right -- Ryan did an excellent job. We are thrilled with the final product. Look at Tyler so happy to show off our new cabinets (before we finished putting away and cleaning off the countertops):


Here is a picture a little closer of the back of our kitchen, including the full-size cabinet right before you go into the new family room. The full-size cabinet is right next to the archway:


Look at the detail he put in -- he made the sides of the cabinets match the fronts. And I don't know if you can see the details on the corners or the molding underneath the cabinets, but try to:


Inside my cabinets are all sorts of fun things and surprises. In addition to my two lazy susans in the base cabinet, there is one in my corner upper cabinet. This sure helps when you're short!


Look at the size of this drawer! We got a nice, huge divider at Ikea, and then fit in our old one next to it. (The old one barely fit into the drawer that used to be there.)


Underneath the silverware is where we put the plates and bowls. This makes it a cinch for the kids to set the table, and it's working great. Look at these pull-out shelves! No more getting on my knees and digging to the back for something:


Some of my other favorite cabinet "hideways" include the following ...

Drawers for my pots and pans:


Garbage and recycle cans:


And the pull-out spice rack that is very accessible to the stove for when I'm cooking:


And here is our pantry. I couldn't back up to include all of it! And it doesn't have a corner, where we lost stuff frequently in our former pantry:


By the way, the paint supplies won't be kept there, but you can see I took the picture before I finished painting. I am finished painting upstairs -- except for touch-ups, which I may or may not get to soon ...

Some of my other favorite things: We moved the bar over three feet to give us a bit more space in the dining area. Before the bench for the table was right up against the bar stools, which made it very difficult to get out since you'd bump the stools to do it. Look at that space there now. (Once again a bit messy, but I wanted to show it anyway):


Yes, mom, that means one day we can actually fit in a table that isn't so narrow. Hooray! And one of my other favorite thing is that Paul's aunt Loa Jean gave us a beautiful bowl when we were married. I have never had counter space to keep it out, but now it's my fruit bowl that I can keep on the counter -- without cluttering it:


On to our new family room ...

We only have touch-up painting and caulking left and then we're done with this room. As mentioned before, I may or may not get to that soon ...

In any case, the room is huge, and we're loving it! We moved our furniture in this week and have loved every second of our new space. Here is the couch and our new La-Z-Boy. Also notice how good the two-tone half-wall looks. Awesome:


Look at the little cutie being the first to test out the new chair. Thanks mom!!! (You, too, can get a free La-Z-Boy by working a zillion hours at RC Willey and then retiring ... or have a generous mom who doesn't have space for the one given to her ... :)


Here is from the new family room looking back at the kitchen, and the archway to the living room that was already there. (We have framed in and "wired" for a fireplace just to the left of the right arch. One day ...)


And here is the archway to the kitchen (again) and the walkway/hallway to the new half-bath. (There isn't a door on this walkway, but you can see the closet door for the hallway closet.)


And speaking of the hallway closets, we now have a place to store our games inside the house (instead of on shelves in the garage):


Anyone wanna come play games with us? :) That's not even the entire shelves, and the opposite side of the hallway has an empty set of shelves just like this. (Of course, they won't stay empty for long!)

The half-bath is also done, and we love our new pedestal sink:


As we speak, our basement is being sheetrocked. We hope to paint and carpet next week (more painting for me -- hooray?!?), and then the boys can be back to sleeping in beds instead of in tents! Hope you enjoyed the pictures. More will be coming in a couple of weeks ...