Kitchen Remodel - before + afters

I promised I would try to post more before + afters...so here I am trying to fulfill my promise. Unfortunately these are not professionally done...I was aiming for speed on my goal. None the less, I think you will get the idea.

This kitchen was a basic builder kitchen as you will see. While it did have one view window...that's all it had! They designed it so that it butt up to a butler's pantry and the pantry was on the view wall. Crazy right?! Why would anyone design a house with a pantry on a wall with the best view on the property?

There were other design dilemmas as well. For a substantial sized home, this kitchen did not fit the scale of the home or it's inhabitants. The island was meek and the lighting was awful. Their idea of task lighting was incandescent rope lights hanging off the bottom of the cabinets. They kept falling off and it looked like Christmas all year long (that's not a good thing!)

Now comes the fun part. I took the pantry off the view wall (the north wall) and relocated to another section of the house by the laundry area (which was south east of the kitchen.) This enabled an expansion of the previously too small dining room into a dining room that scaled very well with the new kitchen size. We bumped the north kitchen wall out to meet the north wall of the previous eating area to the east of the kitchen. I designed the cabinetry to run the perimeter of this new north wall with the sink front and center. All new windows were installed to take advantage of the views. The windows to the northeast and northwest were installed to be serving windows for what would become the outdoor kitchen/dining/living areas. (just thinking ahead:)

The island was expanded to include a five-person eating bar made from local urban hardwoods we picked out from the mill...that was a fun trip! The tile was made locally and is incredible. The cabinet woods were derived from the US and assembled in Canada. These cabinets are not only beautiful but also incredibly well made.

On the south side of the kitchen, I elongated the wall along the hall and wrapped the ends in on both sides to encompass the area with the bulk of the appliances as well as a prep sink.

The ceiling was dropped around the perimeter to allow for ease of installing lights, for the south bank of cabinets to have an ending point and to add drama and perceived height to the interior of the kitchen.

The window coverings are not up yet....they will be interior mount soft valances to bring in the red palette from the dining room and family room.

Please let us know what you think of this remodel!
The BEFORE'S:

NOW for the AFTER's:

You can peek at the new outdoor kitchen as well.....BUT don't you worry...I'll work on taking pics of that as well soon!