French Country Kitchen

I've re modeled 7 houses and found some pictures I thought you might like to get some ideas from. I'm all about Gilding The Lillies with as much punch..... as my pocket purse will allow. In other words, I will spurge on some things, cut wayyyyy back on others. Below, above the sink, there was an ugly window leading into an even uglier glass room. My carpenter cut the window completely out and made me a pass through. The room became my children's playroom. This worked perfectly for us because I could be cooking in the kitchen and keeping an eye on them at all times.

When I bought my my last house, the cabinets were old, wooden and very outdated.  The kitchen was so big, I hated to rip all the existing cabinets out, so I hired a carpenter to take each top door off the hinges and cut a hole in the middle.  Instead of using glass, I put chicken wire in the middle to display all my china.
With the money I saved with not ripping out the cabinets, I put beautiful Salmon colored Thibaut wallpaper on the walls.

Then I hired painters to come in and paint the inside of the cabinets a moss green.  On the cabinets that didn't have the chicken wire, we painted a cream color and put a wash over them to give them that warm feeling. 

Next, I hired an artist to come in and paint different animals on my cabinet doors.  Grape vines, pigs, peacocks, roosters, rabbits, birds, monkeys, a fox and even a bee hive decorated my cabinets.
Later, I had her come back and put a darker mustard color on the island to add some UMF!

I kept the double stove and tile flooring (which I didn't love but it ended up going with the french country theme and I kept it shiny and waxed at all times!!!!
I bought a trash compacter, new frig, put in a double sink and had enough money left over to put granite on the counter tops.