It feels so good to be in a new year, doesn't it? Even though January is my birth month, it's one of my least favorite months of the year. It seems to drag on forever, and the gray skies... don't get me started. One could find themselves feeling rather down, but my husband and I are trying to make the most of the cold weather months to work on indoor projects in our home.

We've been slowly renovating our 1920s craftsman home for the past two years. It's been quite a journey. We completely gutted our kitchen, and started over with a brand new layout, new cabinets, appliances, everything. By September, our new countertops were in. In October/November, we installed new lighting, rebuilt the window trim, did a lot of painting, and continued some of that same type of work in our butler's pantry.

We haven't tiled the kitchen yet (the backsplash, I mean), because I wanted a custom hood/vent cover over our stove. We took the month of December off from any projects (we're far too busy with performances and contract work around the holidays for extra projects), took a family vacation, and were ready to hit the ground running upon our January return.

My husband prefers to do just about everything himself, and this hood cover was no exception. I showed him what I wanted, and he got to work building out a frame, adding the stove vent, and then purchasing needed materials for the outside (hickory wood, shiplap, etc.).

With some help from his dad, Sach was able to get the frame up with the vent installed. It is so wonderful to have light over the stove when I'm cooking again! It's the little things, truly.

We went to Floor and Decor last week, to have another look at the tile we originally chose for the kitchen, and to try to choose a grout color. I'm a visual person, and really need to see things put together to be able to tell whether or not I'm going to like it or love it. As luck would have it, we found a different backsplash tile on clearance that we really liked for the kitchen. It was almost $5.00 less per square foot than tile we originally chose. I was willing to make the compromise on the tile because the price was too good to pass up. With the sale price, we went ahead and bought enough tile (plus extra, of course) for the kitchen and the butler's pantry. We were so excited to purchase it all!

Now, we have the tile on hand, and as soon as the stove hood project is finished, we can move on to tiling the kitchen! There will still be some little things left to do in our kitchen. We just bought all of our under cabinet lighting in December, so that's ready to be installed whenever we can get to it. The tops of the cabinets and the hood cover will still need to be trimmed, and we have to replace our kitchen windows. We have also been debating on whether or not to add a very small stamp of island/counter in the kitchen. The jury is still out on this, though I will keep you all posted.

I am so proud of how far we've come with this kitchen. It was so dated, dangerous, and anything but functional when we bought this house. Now, it's beautiful, modern, yet classic with a cottage look and feel, every appliance is new, electricity has been moved and upgraded, with everything to code. With the help of family and friends (except for the gas install and electric update), Sacha has made my dream for this kitchen a reality. He'd do anything for me, and he continues to prove it each and every day. I'm the luckiest gal in the world.