Create the Kitchen Design of Your Dreams

We've had so many requests for a kitchen tour and that's exactly what we're gonna do today. We're gonna go through everything and this really is our dream kitchen. Enjoy.  When we designed our house we really wanted an open concept. So it goes from the kitchen to the dining room and on into the living room. Everything just flows together which is really great for entertaining and lighting was really important to us because our first house was really dark so we wanted to have huge windows with great daylight and tons of lights in the kitchen. You can never have too many light bulbs in the kitchen 'cause a bright space is a happy place . Alright, let's take a look at our island. And as you can see it is huge . I think it's like 10 feet by five feet. Massive and it takes up a huge footprint in the house so we wanted to make sure that it was super useful. We made good use of every bit of this island. 

So on this back side where I would normally have bar stool and let me know if you have some recommendations 'cause it is so hard to find bar stools. So we've got cabinets on this side all along this side starting from here and we've got, we keep our camera gear and things like that in here. Once I get bar stools I'll probably have some art supplies for this kids in here. So cabinets all along this side and then we have camera gear in here along with some of our photography surfaces and all kinds of stuff. 

And then another cabinet here where we keep tripods and such. And then everything is soft close which is amazing. It makes for a quiet kitchen. I love that. let's get to the fun part of the island. When we organized the kitchen we thought about how we would be using it. So, we made sure to put in drawers everywhere we could so that you don't have to open cabinets and then dive into your cabinets to find something. Drawers are so much more useful. So, down here at the bottom, we have our casserole dishes and bake ware. Things we don't use quite as often. Then in the next drawer we have, some more bake ware. We've got our salad spinner, salad bowls, food chopper, just minor tools. And then in the top drawer here we have our tools that are useful but we don't use quite as often. So mostly bake ware type things. This is where we keep things like our Thermapen. This is really handy for meats. And then our jar opener, safety gloves.

You can see those have gotten a lot of good use, and this little doodad that the kids love, so they're always look-in' for that one. Rolling pins and then just general bake ware type things. And I do love this rolling pin though. I can't tell you but, it's my favorite. And this top drawer has my most used tools. So these go to favorites that get used over and over and it's really nice to have these when we're filming or if I need to have something to get to the stove. These are my all time favorites. I've got tons of measuring cups, measuring spoons, and these ones are the best. They're magnetic so they stay together really well. And then we have our fruit scoops. We use this for mango, this one for avocado or kiwi. More fruit scoops and our lemon squeezer. This one's our favorite brand so far. Homular was two different ones and this one is still goin' strong so, that is good. And then we've got our cookie scoops and ice cream scoop. I love these trigger release ones. We use them for everything. And then all of our spatulas and tongs, ladles, more spatulas, the cheese grater gets a lotta use. And of course, a digital kitchen scale. And I'll leave links to all of these things in the notes. And then the next drawer down, we have pots, pans, skillets, sauce pans . Lots of them. And then also in the following drawers more pots and pans and skillets because you can never have too many. 

And  my very favorite part of the island because I work right here, I do all of my prep here, we film here, I love having this prep sink. It is amazingly useful. I can drain my pasta coming off the stove, I can fill up anything . And then having this water filter on the sink is awesome because it's so much more handy to fill up a coffee pot right here then from a refrigerator. And it's filtered water. The kids love it too. And of course it has the disposal button. So I can just sweep off my mess and dispose of it . Okay, and there is a garbage can right here. So if you've ever wondered where I just sweep my garbage it's not going on the floor. It's going into the garbage can. Here it is. Garbage and recycling. So handy. And then we also have a paper towel dispenser right here. Right where I'm working. It's awesome. And then under the sink we've got stuff, you know. Sink stuff. Nothing terribly exciting. Little step stool for my little one who loves to help me in the kitchen. Hopefully we'll never have to use it. And then up on top we've got our medicine cabinet over here and that's the one that didn't get tidied up. So we're not opening it . And then over here we have our big ol' honkin' bottles of spices because with these you really want the big ol' honkin' bottles . Very well used. Okay, and then we're still moving in. There's not, there's a lot of cabinets and we're not used to this many cabinets so it's gonna take us awhile to fill them up. Okay and then over here, I love this drawer right next to the stove. This is, oh I love having my spices in a drawer and these racks. They are so handy. It's nice to see all of your spices. Easy to find. Makes cooking so much nicer. As you can tell, I'm a spice hoarder. 

Here we have bake ware. Cupcake, bake pans, pie pans. All that jazz. And then, whoa. That's empty . Work in progress and then we have cabinets built in on both sides of the stove which we use for cutting boards, drying racks, hot pads. All that good stuff. We've got our huge cutting boards in this one and plastic wrap, foil, things that are used all the time. And now  the moment we've been waiting for. I wanna talk to you guys about my range. It is a beast. It is a fabulous beast .  I love it. Is a Thermador and it's a 48 inch. Huge. It has six burners and a griddle which I've never had a griddle before but it's just so good. It's like a giant skillet that fits all of the things. And then each burner is super strong and I love that they're spaced out so you can fit, you can fit six huge pots on this stove and they're not crowding each other. That is the best and then this little panel light is so cool. It's just, I turn it on just so I can look at it and enjoy it . Okay, I'm gonna try to calm down. And this gigantor oven down here fits any size baking sheet and multiple baking sheets next to each other. And I also love that the racks come out like this so that you can pull out the rack and then lift up your casserole dish so you're not diving into the hot oven for it.  and then it also has this little oven here on the side for smaller things like chicken nuggets. 'Cause I'm a mom that makes chicken nuggets . I know you're judging me, it's fine. I don't care and then the hood above the range is just a dream. It sucks up everything. Like sometimes I feel like it's gonna suck me in there because it's so strong and we actually had to create a vent that pulls air from the outside because the suction is just so strong. Like, I'm not even kidding. It is fabulous and it's not loud either. 

That's full strength and it's like, you can feel it. It's good. It has great lighting. I just love this thing. Okay and then also this is something that I have always dreamed of having 'cause it looks cool and it's actually really useful. So this is a pot filler. So when you've to a big heavy pot, like these cast iron ones that I love so much, you can just fill them right on the stove.  I get excited about these things. moving on. To the left of the stove we have some more really useful things. We've got the salt, the pepper, oils, vinegars, vanilla extract. 

Things that we use all the time. And then over here we keep our Tupperware, measuring cups and our breakfast bar. So this is our homemade granola and I have a recipe for it on my blog. It is so good and we always stock it at home because we love yogurt parfaits in the morning. One of our favorite breakfasts. Kind of a hodgepodge but, we know where stuff it . And then down here is the practical life stuff. We have our silverware. Easy to grab, easy to reach for the kids. And then we keep all of our dishes in here because the kids can easily put it in here. Our son unloads the dishwasher for us and these plates, I mean they are inexpensive. The Corelle ones but I just love them. They are so handy. They're lightweight. They don't seem to break and I don't know why I'm obsessed with them . And then down here we have all of our mixin' bowls. Our stainless steel ones and then this set because each one is a bowl and a colander so you can strain things or use it as a mixing bowl and we'll have these in our shop too. Super handy and then of course, our collection of glass bowls.

And tucked back in here across from the pantry we have an extension of the kitchen called the butlers pantry. I don't know why. We don't have a butler . But this is where I keep all of my photography props in the cabinets above and below and where we keep all of our small appliances. So tons of outlets on this wall. Also on this wall we have a second oven and this is so handy during the holidays or if you're a food blogger and you do a lot of test baking. So, very useful. And we have a built in microwave right on top of that. We don't use this as often but it has it's place. And then cabinets up here, just random house stuff and we keep our more small appliances down here. 

We've got the instant pot, slow cooker, hand mixer and such. Then over here we have our baking sheets conveniently located next to the oven and then we also have some silicone liners for those baking sheets. And now we move on to the sink. My second favorite thing about this kitchen. We went with a farmhouse sink because it was dreamy  and I love these racks inside because they protect the sink and if you're drying something like a big pot it's not sitting on the bottom. They're really convenient. Highly recommend. And then we have the  motion sensor faucet which is, I have a love, hate relationship because like, sometimes I reach over and I'm like That happens a lot. Shoot  anyways we designed this with function in mind. So this is super functional. We have another set of garbage cans right over here. Garbage and recycling bin which is so handy and functional.  so, imagine this. I've got my dirty dish, I scrape it off in here, I rinse it or wash it in the sink and then I put it in the dishwasher which is currently packed with dirty dishes. We're not gonna open that. And then we have our glasses in this cabinet. 

Also super handy because the dishes go from the dishwasher right up here. And from the dishwasher right over to that drawer where we keep the dishes. Function. See? Very well thought out. Movin' on. Under the sink we have our under the sink stuff just like everybody has under the sink stuff. Garbage bags, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser alright? Somebody really swore by these so we bought them. So far so good actually. And then this is our favorite dish soap. It smells really good. Is it safe to sniff dish soap? I hope  And then we have the shelves. I've always wanted a window above the kitchen sink and it didn't happen in this house but this is the next  thing. It's so nice. And then we had Irene of Minton Pine Design do our decorating in the kitchen and she did such a nice job. Looks so pretty. Such a sweet thing to look at. We did tile all the way up to the ceiling which I love and we did the subway tile. Classic, see? It's the sink . But it didn't get me that time. Up here we have all of our coffee stuff. Our to go cups, our beans, our cleaners and teas and this is our station. And down here we have the junk drawer and I call it the organized drawer because Homular does not allow it to become a junk drawer which is great. And then we have our coffee glass cups. These are so fun to use for coffee and I'll show you why in a bit. We're gonna take one out for now. And then down here we have our plastic bags.