A facelift for the kitchen

Ever since we moved into this house we (I think me more than Bryce) had planned to refinish the wood floors --which needed to be done very badly the past few years-- and change the color to something more our style. Bryce was in the middle of getting his master's degree so we decided to wait till he was done before undertaking such a big project. He has now been graduated for almost 4 years and with lots of convincing on MY part... he conceided to finally taking the plunge and getting it done. Well... since the cabinets and railing matches the floor, and I wanted the floor a darker color, those things needed to change too. I wanted white cabinets and with our white countertops that we already had... the countertops needed to change too. :) After lots of looking, price checking, stressing, etc... here is what we ended up having done: *Put in laminate countertops in the granite color that I loved *Installed a new stainless steel sink and faucet which I love cause it is way bigger and deeper than our other sink! *Painted the kitchen cabinets white, repainted the kitchen doors and kitchen trim *Added handles to the drawers and cabinets *Removed the wooden ballisters from the railing and replaced them with iron oil rubbed bronzed ballisters *Stained the railing darker *Sanded, stained and refinished the wood floors a darker color. Luckily we had most of the work done by professionals and that was such a blessing to turn those things over to them! I have to give a big shout out to our painter, Mike Stevens, who did an absolutely AMAZING job on the railing, cabinets, doors and trim!!! He was also a HUGE lifesaver when the copper pipe that feeds water to the fridge decided to crack and leak all over in the basement in the middle of this project. He stopped what he was working on and came down to help me get it stopped and guided me on what to do to start drying everything out. (Of course Bryce was out of town when this all went down.) I will have to do lots more thanks at the end of this post cause I wouldn't have survived it without lots of support! :) Anyway- on to the pictures!
Before: Ignore the mess-- I can't seem to find the picture I took where it was actually all cleaned up.  And those are little paint cards on the kitchen cabinets from
 me trying to decide on which "white" I liked.

I am SO happy it is all finished! I love the way it looks and am dying to go find some sweet rugs and a few other colorful accessories to add into my new look! It has been one insane month and a half but we survived thanks to lots of great friends and family assisting me along the way. Big hugs are owed to Bryce for the projects he did himself and for all of the inconvenience it caused him when he didn't have one bit of interest in doing any of this. THANKS EVERYONE!!! Now to paint the kitchen stools red.... :) P.S. I have many more important posts to make-- like Mason's 2nd b-day and such but after fighting this website for the past hour and a half to do this simple post-- it is going to have to wait for another night.