Kitchen continued...microwave and backsplash

I bragged about my kitchen being done in my 2012 goal recap post...and that was mostly true, but we still had (have) a couple of things we wanted to upgrade.

Here's what we had before (after our kitchen reno was completed last spring):

The Mr. really wanted a project to take on over a couple of days he had off before the holidays. We ventured out to Pilo appliances where we got our fridge and bought an over-the-range microwave. VERY exciting for us since we love to cook and currently do not have a hood fan (that lovely beef Wellington we made for Christmas made the house smell like beef for a couple of days!). I like good cooking smells in my house before I eat but not the day after :)

The Mr. re-did the wiring for the microwave as I mentioned in this post, and then spent time putting up the bracket and the cabinet for the microwave.

From there we knew we HAD to wrap the backsplash around behind and beside the stove (is anything simple actually simple??).

We were initially going to do a different tile behind the stove, but once we opted for the over-the range microwave instead of a stand alone hood fan, we thought it made most sense to carry through the bevelled subway tile we have in the rest of the kitchen. Now it looks like it was always done at one time!

We are now one step closer to actually finishing the kitchen (final step is to find and buy a stainless steel gas stove)!