Bloggy Parade of Homes- Week 4 pictures-Kitchens

Welcome to the fourth week of Bloggy Parade of Homes!
For those of you who are just joining us, we are touring our readers through our homes, room by room. This week we are checking out kitchens. If you'd like to play along please leave a comment that you've posted your pics, along with a link to your site and your email address so I can sign you up for reminders and updates. All those who are already participating are leaving comments that their pictures are posted. Go check out their homes!

*If you played along last week, or anytime really up til now, I've linked to you below. Except for Donna who is in China right now growing her family! She gets the week off ;) So, nothing like a little internet peer pressure.

~ Elaine
~ Aimee
~ Lisa S.
~ Mrs. Gumby
~ Jacquie
~ Rachel
~ Julie
~ Michele
~ Judy
~ Jessica
~ Julie W.
~ Alfred's Mom
~ Sandy
~ Kendra
~ Gabs
~ Jesser
~ Ani
~Melissa
~ Heather
~ Sara
~ Mary Mia
~ Lisa
~ Leah
~ Alyson
~ Connie
~ Priscilla
~ Gabs


Now, on to my house. (click to enlarge pictures)
First I'm going to show you the Before pictures. These are pictures I took the first time we toured the house when it was for sale. So all the furniture and "art" belonged to the previous owner. Note the abundance of stencils- even between the windows! Like there wasn't enough going on already!
Afters:
Since we were in the dining room last week I'm going to start our tour with the view from the entrance to the dining room. Then moving toward the family room you get this view:
The breakfast nook: View of the kitchen from over by the family room:
The wall color is Butter Creme by Restoration Hardware via Lowe's. We replaced all the cabinet knobs with some from IKEA to get rid of the brass. We replaced all the lighting as well. The light in the breakfast nook came from Lowes and the other two came from IKEA. I'm not crazy about the counter tops. I wouldn't have picked blue. I love blue, but just not for kitchen counter tops. One day we'll change them out. I've decorated around them using lots of yellow and lime green and I think it works pretty well. My favorite things about the kitchen are the size, layout, island, big windows, view out of windows, the bistro table set, how it's open to the family room, and the chalkboard wall.
Now, if I could just hire a personal chef and someone to wash dishes for me it would be perfect!