New Cabinets and New Countertop!

We finally got our new cabinets and half the countertop in! An by we I mean my dad and Auston. They look great and I can't wait until we get a coat of paint on those bad boys. The cabinets were 30% off (when we opened a card) when we walked in to Lowe's, so we decided to go ahead and snatch them up even though we weren't planning on buying them that day. We ended up with a 24", 12" and 30" with uppers to match. We still need to cut the hole for the range on the new side and install the counter top on the old side. We're just waiting to be done with painting before we put the new stuff in. Right now it's handy to have a counter top by the sink where we wash the paintbrushes that we don't have to worry about getting dirty. Thankfully this kitchen was covered in outlets, at the right height, so we did not have to install any of them ourselves. 

Since the first pictures were taken we also got our track light installed (bottom picture)! We decided on track lighting because it was cheap but had that upscale(ish) look. Recessed lighting would have been the #1 on the wish list, but it just started to climb out of our budget range as we would have had to rewire and drill holes etc. We ended up grabbing kits from Home Depot for $30; one track in the kitchen and one track in the breakfast room. My only condition with these is that they could not be LED, so we got some great ones that held incandescent bulbs. The kit comes with 3 heads already, so factor that in when your purchasing your kit. We did not and we ended up buying 6 extra because we didn't know the kit came with any. You're thinking, well what else does a "kit" have other than the things you need to make something work, but hey, we were just excited. We actually ended up keeping 2 of the extra heads so we have 4 heads on each track.

Here's a close up of the counter top; it's a nice white and black speckled laminate. The Ogee type edge is not my first pick for the laminate, but we got a whole 6" piece for under $100 - yayyy! My very first thought was to get a black laminate and do the cabinets white, but this was a deal we couldn't pass up. This space between the cabinet and door is an odd size because it's not big enough for another 12" but not small enough to leave empty. Right now my initial thought is to do a cool spice rack/cookbook holder.