The neighbours must be loving us - All this snow and ice has meant the filled-to-the-brim skip out front of the house can't be picked up yet (fingers crossed for a slight melt soon), and now it's a wee bit more full with packaging from the kitchen install. Yup, the kitchen is going in (can I hear a woot-woot?); the Home Depot installers arrived yesterday and the work has begun on fitting all the de-lovely Venicia by Kraftmaid cabinets.

We went for the Mirra Collection Carina doors in Bianco Gloss (take a boo below at a Venicia kitchen in the Chianti Gloss, and squint to see it in white and not red, lol). They're chic and simple flat panel doors with a swish integral aluminum pull for a seamless and ultra-modern look. The planning process at the store was great; we worked with Georgina (she's a treasure!) who knows the Venicia matrix upside-down, totally maxing out on all our storage needs. Make sure to click here and read up about all the Venicia cabinet's bells and whistles.

Picking out appliances was, as usual, eye-wateringly difficult since there is so much fab gear to choose from. I firmly believe that once you pick the range/cooktop everything else will fall into place and, since our range will sit smack dab in a peninsula, we decided to go with one that had a downdraft extractor so we didn't have to worry about a ceiling-mount rangehood. Tada! Jenn-Air had the perfect solution, we went with their Dual Fuel Slide-In Downdraft Range, which led us to pick their Cabinet Depth Side-by-Side Refrigerator and the Energy Star rated Built-in Dishwasher - All in stainless steel with a great modern industrial vibe.

For the countertop and integral sink we're set on Corian (though I'm flip-flopping on the colour), the faucet is the fantabulous new Karbon articulated kitchen faucet from Kohler, and the backsplash a ribbed white glass subway tile from Daltile called Taffeta - All available to order through Home Depot.

Click here to see the story so far on what's been happening on our mondo reno - We're finally in the home stretch, with a move-in date of Feb 1st!