The builder didn't fully finish out the kitchen, knowing we'd be coming in for demo the day after close.

Another picture of our original kitchen in progress

Here's the kitchen on closing day. It actually ended up looking better than we'd expected -- and we'd cheaped out (and deliberately made some hideous countertop and backsplash tile decisions). I started to get nervous that maybe we didn't know what we were doing...

...I really worried we didn't know what we were doing after this, which happened the day after close. As it turns out, we really didn't know what we were doing, but it all ended up okay!

Once the cabinets started going in, we started to feel better.

We LOVE the cabinets -- and loved the cabinet design. We bought the (semi-custom) cabinets from Kitchencraft, and we highly recommend them. They were the shining star vendor in what was otherwise a very painful process.

The countertops are in (they're a granite called Yellow River), and the primer is up for the backsplash.

The backsplash is up. We designed it ourselves, and were fortunate enough to link up with a great tile guy who made it come to life. The stone is a tumbled marble out of Mexico. The glass tiles come from a company called Innovative Glass Elements out of California.

The plan all along had been to go with the gold (Benjamin Moore's California Hills) all along, but once we saw the tile up, we knew that wasn't the right decision. Inspired by the center color on some of the glass tiles, we opted for Benjamin Moore's Moroccan Spice.

I wish I could tell you we hired the best painters in the world, but that would be a lie. The biggest lesson learned here is that just because a general contractor does good work in one area (like installing vent hoods) doesn't mean he can do everything (like paint!).

Here is our final kitchen, painted and functional. Turns out we love it -- which made the significant pain fade faster than we'd imagined. Thanks for looking!