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Kitchens... 

Ok, so we recently purchased our third house. If you decide to follow me you will learn that J and I move ALOT (each home is in a different state). I love finding new places and meeting new people. BUT I think that we have finally found our forever home!!!

Each of our houses have a completely different style. The first one had a small, but very practical kitchen. The cabinets in the top picture are light hickory. If you are looking for light cabinets but not white, I would recommend light hickory. It is gorgeous!  I loved the glass front cabinets for displaying dishes. Overall I loved this kitchen. The one thing that I really miss about this kitchen is the window over the sink. It was nice to look outside while I was cooking or cleaning up.

In our second house we decided that we wanted granite countertops. One of the problems we had with the laminate countertop in our first house was that the seams where the laminate met separated and actually bubbled (right about where the first barstool against the wall is). I fell in LOVE with granite and would highly recommend granite to everyone I know. It does come with a higher price tag, but it is worth it! Our second kitchen had dark maple cabinets. I really liked how easy they were to clean, and they did not show drips and spills on the front of them.

Our "forever" house :) has much lighter cabinets, and I find they are much, much harder to keep clean however they are stunning!

North Carolina 

This kitchen has everything that I have ever wanted (except a subzero fridge). My someday wish list...lol. The subway tile is so easy to clean and I no longer have to scrub the drywall behind the stove to keep the paint from looking filthy, although to be honest I found myself repainting the wall rather than scrubbing it...lol.
The granite is light, but not so light that it shows stains. One of the things that I read about light granite is that it stains easily. Lucky for us - no stains yet! We have soft close drawers (when you lightly push the drawer toward the closed position a magnet catches and softly closes it the rest of the way). It does cut down on the slamming of drawers. We do not have soft close cabinets, although they do make them. Our cabinets have pull out shelves which come in handy, and the garbage and recycling drawers are built in.

Though this is my dream house and my dream kitchen, there are a few things that I would like to do to give it a little more color. I would love to add a different design in the backsplash above the stove. I have pinned several that I like, however the one below is my favorite.

Dreamy backsplash upgrade 

The other thing that we are lacking in our kitchen, and in our butlers pantry, is a built-in wine cooler. I would prefer it to be in the butlers pantry but I am loving this one in the kitchen island. Did you notice that I LOVE islands and bars??? What a fantastic way to entertain. You can never have too many places to sit in the kitchen! :)

Island Wine Cooler

Many more ideas, but for now I have to focus on the rest of the house. I am starting with our kitchen because it is the only room in our house that I am satisfied with. Now to start on the dinning room... :)