I thought it was high time I gave another update on the state of the kitchen – one that actually included photos, for a change.

Thursday morning the inspector came over and signed off on both the structural work and the insulation. The structural inspection was the one we were the most concerned about, mainly because of the necessary addition of the new supporting beams, but everything passed. So Friday, when we got home, instead of exposed studs and plywood, we saw drywall.

The funny thing about construction is that rooms always look bigger when there is drywall. It seems counterintuitive that adding drywall would change the perception of a room’s space, but I remember this exact phenomenon when we were building the house in Dixon – that when it was just a foundation, it looked tiny, and when there was just the framing it looked a little better but still small, and it wasn’t until they got the drywall in place that all of a sudden it looked big.

Anyway. The addition of drywall means that the view of the kitchen from the dining room door went from this

to this:

From standing in the little alcove where the floor-to-ceiling pantry used to be, it went from this (where you can see where the original back door used to be):

to this (look, we actually now *have* a door!):

And the walk-in pantry (in what used to be the junk room/enclosed back porch) went from this:

to this (complete with pocket door):

Oh, and because I’m sure you’re wondering, that odd thing in the middle of the room is part of what will eventually be an island.