the process is relatable

Our kitchen is finished and I am hoping to share a tour next week. As excited as I am to share with you the ‘after’ photos, it is important to me that they are shared in context of the ‘before’ and in ‘process’ photos too. While our kitchen is everything we hoped it would be, it was also far more than we anticipated in regards to the toll it took on us as a family to build it (and we still have so much left in the gameroom, boys’ attic room, and exterior!)

Process photos are much easier for me to share than ‘after’ photos. I think partially it is due to knowing most people can relate to the process. Whether it is building a home addition, raising kids, pursuing a dream, or just making it through the day – we all are experienced in ‘the process’.

The ‘after’, well, those kinds of photos are harder for me to post because I know they aren’t as relatable. We all have dreams or things we’ve longed to experience the ‘after’, but we don’t always get that experience. I’m grateful – extremely grateful – our kitchen is now in the ‘after’ state, but I am equally grateful for the ways the process grew, stretched, and exhausted us. The ‘after’ is far sweeter because the process wasn’t always so sweet.

The plan started with walking out the space in our backyard, envisioning how it would function from a practical standpoint, and then spray painting the rough design in the grass. After the spray paint, Chris drew up plans on Microsoft Excel…a few more steps and we started building.

Well, that is a very small glimpse and only about 1/25th of the pictures I took of the process, but if I posted them all it would be way too long!

Attaching the wood counter was the last step…next post will be a tour of the finished space. I will share more details about the different parts of the kitchen, supplies we used, etc. in the coming weeks.

Wahooo…..nearly a year later we have a kitchen again. A beautiful, dreamy, built with blood, sweat, and tears kitchen!