Our kitchen is coming together- and true to the impatient child that lives inside of me- I’ve moved in.
 I found a bunch of my vintage oil paintings & hung them above the sink as I’ve been planning to do for months and it makes me soooooo happy:
Yes, I know, there’s still painting & electrical to be done & cabinets to attach, but my artwork is up.  I try to ignore the blue painter’s tape, open electrical outlets & such and just focus on the finished parts of the kitchen.  (It works surprisingly well when you are cooking for the first time in 3 months!!! yay!!)
Our island- which will be covered in reclaimed wood from the Lorimer Workshop in Rhode Island- and topped in honed marble- will be finished in a few weeks.  For now, I got a piece of navy gingham oicloth to put over our plywood.  (I think I’m going to keep it for really messy days- ie kids’ art & craft projects & pizza parties 😉

{Our contractors worked really hard to make our kitchen functional for us on Thanksgiving & stayed late -when I know they wanted to be at home with their families- getting the appliances hooked up the night before.  We did a turkey (rotisserie style 😉 in the oven & are just so thankful for everything.  I know there are many out there who are dealing with storm damage & who are trying to piece back together their homes, which is really tough & our thoughts have been with them.}

Here’s a photo of the main wall in the kitchen, where the range is (and hood will be)…

{I love my range.  I didn’t think it was possible to love an appliance but I sort of do.  It looks good and cooks food faster than any oven/stove we’ve ever had before.  We’ve always inherited our appliances with our houses and so this house is the first time we’ve done research & purchased what we really want.  There is SUCH a difference, I had NO IDEA. Crazy.}

Here’s a picture of a beef (before we cooked it) on Saturday for some friends…

Now, more about this range.  (The Smeg Opera— discontinued but I was able to find one.  There is a newer model available, but as far as I’ve been able to tell, it doesn’t come with the rotisserie function.  BUT…  there are stands you can buy to put in any convection oven to make rotisserie-style food.)  It’s Italian as was pointed out to me.  (I thought it was Australian because in my serach for rotisserie Smegs, I could only find them on the Smeg Australia site so I got completely confused.)  BUT-  THIS THING IS AMAZING.  Again, I’ve never purchased my own appliances before and I’ve never cooked on any high-end appliances before so what I’m comparing it to is generally the lowest available range from Home Depot, but hot damn!!  It’s crazy!!!

We overcooked the scrambled eggs on the first morning because we didn’t know eggs could even cook that quickly.  We turned around & they were done.  (We had gas burners at our last house too but this one has much higher BTUs I guess…  I got it because it was pretty. 😉  (And came with good reviews.)

I searched for hours for this thing and looked at lots of different brands- all online- before coming to my decision.  I wanted an affordable professional style range (which for us, ruled out many of the higher-end brands like Wolf or LaCanche- MY DREAM 😉 that looked good & had good reviews.  Having a rotisserie function was something on my dream wish list and I pretty much flipped out when I found one that had it all.  (To check out some more ranges I found that looked good, go here.)

I am really liking some of my other appliances too, so when I get the chance, I’ll post on them too.

And finally, just wanted to share a quick pic I snapped (when I was in my Norman Bates rocker holding the baby this morning) out our loft window…  Watching the sunrise with the boys has become one of my favorite things…  It’s so peaceful and recharges me somehow:

I hope your Thanksgiving was special & that you find some quiet time in the holiday whirlwind we’re now entering into!!

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