So I will admit that I absolutely love looking at houses and how other people decorate. It’s something I grew up with. My mom used to load us in the car and we would drive around looking at houses in the country. It was so relaxing and cheap entertainment. Whenever our family gets together, Mom, Dawn, Hillary, and I will load up and go “riding” as we call it. It’s so much fun! (Maybe I should have a career in real estate 
. ) It’s actually quite funny to think that whenever I had huge tests in grad school, right before I would start cramming the night before, Dawn and I would often drive around west Austin looking at huge houses. For some reason, it relaxed me, and maybe it added a little motivation why I needed to keep on studying. Afterall, I didn’t want to live in that apartment for the rest of my life.
KellysKornerBlog , a blog I frequent, came up with a great idea to show people where you live. Now I get to save on gas and get to drive around on my computer and look at houses Yipee!
Here are pictures of our kitchen for the kitchen edition of “Show Us Where You Live”:
I love this cookbook stand:
Our house was custom built so I got to choose the look of the kitchen. One of my favorite parts of the kitchen is the Volga blue granite. It’s black granite with marbles of what looks like blue quartz. It almost has an opal effect where if the light hits it just right, you can see the blue “fire” from parts of the granite. I really love it! When I chose the light fixtures, I wasn’t crazy about them at first but we had to use them because we special ordered them and they weren’t cheap. They have certainly grown on me and I can’t imagine the kitchen without them. I really do love this kitchen. It’s light and bright and very functional.
Stunning kitchen! I gotta ask….what do you keep in those upper cabinets by the ceiling? And, how do you get to them. I can barely reach the top shelf of my cabinets and they don’t go all the way up our ten foot ceiling. If you want to see mine, I’m #31 on Kelly’s link list – House of Jones. This will take you directly to my kitchen photos. I had already posted them back in November, so I just relinked everybody back to that post.
I’m in love with your kitchen….it is beautiful !!!
I only put stuff in those top shelf cabinets that I rarely use. I have one of those mini-ladders that folds up super small. Ha! I never use anything thats up there anyway. It’s good storage. However, really and truly, most people do this and put glass in them to show off their special dishes. I just like the streamlined look
I am dying a little inside looking at your kitchen! It’s absolutely beautiful! So light and bright! Mine is way too dark. I didn’t get to design mine, even though the house was brand new. Come see it
Beautiful!! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the lighting over your island! And all the colors – or lack there of, but that’s what makes it so beautiful!!
Hi…I am just passing through from Kelly’s Korner and must say WOW!!! You have my DREAM kitchen!! you are so lucky! I love it
Hope you continue with Kelly’s home tour – I would LOVE to see the rest of your house 
What a beautiful kitchen. We are about to start building and I am so nervous I am going to mess something up with my “design ideas”. I welcome any advice!! You definitely did a great job designing yours!! Have a great weekend.
Many Blessings,
Amanda
The only thing I can say WOW !!! Your kitchen is beautiful
Enjoyed the tour…you have a warm and beautiful home!
beautiful kitchen ! I love it! especially the light fixtures & backsplash, you have great taste!
Love your kitchen, it is clean and open and very pretty!! thanks for sharing!
oh WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your kitchen is amazing! Please join in every week – I want to see the rest of your house!!!!!!
Thanks so much for all your lovely comments! You’ve made my Friday
Beautiful girl!! I just love it! Looking forward to following your blog!! Im Ashley on the Kitchen list of Kelly’s- number 81
I LOVE YOUR KITCHEN!!!
Very pretty, neat and clean kitchen. LOVE IT!
OMG, that’s all I can say!!!!
-Ash-
p.s. If you couldn’t tell I LOVE your kitchen!
Awesome kitchen. Looks like you live in that big house now.
When I dream of my new kitchen, I dream of this! It is gorgeous!
When I was little, my parents and my brother and I used to drive around town and look at beautiful houses too! We especially liked to look at seaside homes. We even found Martha Stewart’s home in Westport, Connecticut, that was a real thrill.
Your kitchen is gorgeous! I love the beautiful tile backsplash and the amazing granite countertops. I wish I could just reach out and touch them. I love the appliances too. What brand is the stove? Is it professional grade?
I would love to see some more photos of your lovely home.
Oh, I would so love to be able to drive around in Connecticut. You are so lucky! I just love seaside homes and beautiful countrysides.
My stove is professional grade. It’s a Viking, along with the refrigerator. The stove is great. I really like that it is both gas and electric. The gas range is not so fun to clean though
[...] by Claudia in The Little House, daily. No Comments Found here whilst tag surfing, but it ultimately comes from HERE. This week was show us your kitchen. I only [...]
Very stunning kitchen. Love the white. I like the openness and airy feel. We have a vanilla and seafoam kitchen and I really enjoy the airy feel when the kitchen is white or light like ours. Thanks for sharing! Very pretty! Found your blog thru Kelly’s by the way. I think I’m like #234 on Kelly’s list. I just got my kitchen tour post up today. Little late. Ha ha! Blessings, Angie
http://www.angelicagracedesigns.com/blog/ (blog)
Wow!! I love your kitchen! The light fixtures are so dramatic! I dream of having a kitchen like this. Thanks for sharing
I love the lighting you chose! I also love the wine rack. So beautiful! I could totally relate to your driving around before exams and looking at houses. I remember those days myself, except I would scan those free Real Estate books like a property mogul! Gorgeous kitchen.
Joy @ http://www.joyslife.com
Oh. My. Gosh. Gorgeous!!!!
GASP!!! This is the most gorgeous kitchen I have seen yet from Kelly’s tour!! If that were my house, I would be sitting by that island with a magazine and lemonade patting myself on the back saying “Oh yeah! This is my KILLER house!”
You really did an amazing job putting that altogether. It’s just stunning. And now I don’t want to go walk past my sad little laminate counter tops…snif.
WOW! I can’t wait until I get to have a kitchen like that – it’s beautiful! Thank you for sharing!
Your kitchen is absolutely gorgeous! It was always a treat growing up in Austin when my mom would take the back roads through West Austin instead of the major roads. I loved looking at all of the huge old houses. And now the huge new houses…
Ok, hands down I LOVE you kitchen. I even called my husband over and said “THIS” is what I want when we build! (We’ll see if that happens!)
Just one word: Jealous!
Beautiful…just beautiful!
Your kitchen is beautiful!!! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing your beautiful kitchen! I have the same cookbook holder and LOVE it!
Thanks so much for sharing your kitchen!! It is truly beautiful…..it looks like a page out of a magazine. Just gorgeous – you designed it well!!
I love your kitchen!! The light fixtures I think make it!! So clean and crisp looking. I will have to show it to my sisters. House looking is a hobby of our family’s as well. I think it runs in our blood. My gran sells real estate and so does my aunt. And my mil decorates peoples houses on the side. Love IT!
LOVE the kitchen. I have two questions.
1. Do you love your granite? We are going to have a kitchen remodel on our hands in a year or two and I’m thinking about granite or calacatta gold marble.
2. If you could redo your kitchen what would you do differently?
It’s absolutely lovely!
Yes, I do love my granite. All of our bathrooms and our Master bathroom is done in Marble. Here’s the issue with Marble. It’s super soft and porous. It scratches very easily and even when sealed, can and will stain. I absolutely love White Carrara in kitchens but we did our whole bathroom in it and I wouldn’t do my kitchen in it because of the above named reasons. I love marble! It’s gorgeous and I will use it again in our new home I’m planning. However, I wish it wasn’t so easy to scratch. Our powder bath and guest bathroom have this marble: http://www.walkerzanger.com/catalog/popimage.php?key=marble&tab=&page=82 Those bathrooms are rarely used and even that marble has some scratches in it. Hotels have to buff their marble all the time to keep it looking new. The granite we used in our kitchen is Volga blue which can be seen here: http://www.volgablue.com/ It’s a black color with really cool flecks of blue quartz in it. We will be building our new “dream” home soon and I am going to use it again. I love it! If I would do anything differently, it would be to have a larger refrigerator. We never have enough freezer space. I’m working on picking out designs for my our next home and it’s so difficult because there are so many pretty options.
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I mentioned your kitchen in my blog post today… hope you don’t mind!
I LOVE your kitchen!!!! I am starting a 3D rendering business and i was wondering if you would allow me to recreate your kitchen in 3D for my portfolio? I would just recreate the views from your pictures but in 3D, please let me know if that would be possible.
Thanks!
Hi, Sure! I don’t mind
Best, Amanda
Thanks so much!!!! I will send you the renderings when they are done so you can see them!!!
I have the renderings done, where can I send them to you? They came out lovely.
You can send them to amandaraab@gmail.com. I can’t wait to see them!
We have the same type of granite and indeed, when the light is at certain angles the blue spots are showing very well. The problem is that this can be seen only at sunset. We experimented with a variety of artificial lights to extend the effect later into the evening but failed so far.
I am very interested if anyone found a type of lighting (bulbs of different colors/properties) or lights arrangements that will emphasize the blue spots in the granite. We tried black lights, full spectrum, party lights of different colors (red, green, blue), regular lights and nothing seems to accentuate the blue spots.
The effect I am trying to get is to have a party when the light in the kitchen is relatively dim but the blue spots are shiny.
Thank you for any suggestion.
We get lots of natural light in the kitchen and it seems to reflect nicely. I think it mostly has to do with the angle the light is bouncing off (ie: the side rather than straight down). I honestly don’t know how you would get them to reflect in dim light. That’s a tough one.
Thank you,
You are right, I also noticed that when the light is at an angle (maybe 20 degrees from the horizontal), the blue spots reflect better. Probably that’s the solution: to get some focused spot lights that are pointing on the countertops from one corner of the ceiling to the opposite corner of the kitchen such that the angle is low enough.
Thank you