Show us where you live Friday - Kitchen Edition

Kelly had the idea for this fun concept - and even though I am late getting mine posted, due to a busy weekend - here are the photos of my kitchen.
We bought our house almost 5 years ago. Everything in our house was plain - the walls were all white, the countertops laminate, and the fixutres all brass. So we immediately changed it all before we moved in! So now it may be getting a little dated again - but I still like it.

I am not a huge fan of oak - but as you can see the trim around all of our doors is also stained oak - so changing that would have been a huge undertaking.

Here is the view into the kitchen from the eat-in breakfast area. (sorry about the smudgy refrigerator). We also got new stainless appliances when we moved in. Our countertops our tiled - in reflection I wish I would have went ahead and got granite - but my husband used to do tile work - and it was more economical at the time.

This is a close up of the backsplash tile - even if we would have gotten granite - I still would have went with this tile. I love that it is not something I see everyday in other homes.

The cabinets here are our main food pantry - as you will see in the next pic. I have a lot of fruit decor in the kitchen. One reason I love to keep it this way - is that my mom was very instrumental in helping me decorate - and just knowing that makes me think of her everday when I am in here.

This is our pantry underneath our stairs. We bought some stainless steel racks to keep all of our extra bakeware/entertainment dishes etc.

Here is the eat-in area of the kitchen. This is where we eat together as a family when we aren't eating in the family room. The table expands out into a big square - so we have room for 8 in here for bigger gatherings.

This idea - of using ivy/grapes for a swag instead of a curtain was my mom's idea - and I have always loved it - this is the window above the sink looking out into the backyard.

Here are our everyday dishes. My mom and dad bought us these on our 5 year anniversary (this year will be our 13th).

These were a gift from our wedding. We rarely use this set - this group is on display in my china cabinet.

Here is a set that we bought - more of a plain pattern. We don't use this too often either.

We also have a beautiful set of Christmas dishes that were my moms. When she passed away my dad let me have them - as we do the holiday gatherings at our house now. Maybe when we get closer to Christmas Kelly will do a Christmas tour of homes - and I can post them then.

I hope you enjoyed the tour. I am going to try and get ahead for next week's post - Living Rooms!!