redo: kitchen

Before our 6th child, Molly, was born we did a quick redo of our kitchen. Here are the posts: "Kitchen". We painted the cabinets, replaced hardware, sink and fixtures. We never finished putting up moulding or painting the existing moulding.

So last Saturday we finally put the finishing touches. I repainted the faux brick to a sea green/blue color, repainted the paneled walls a cream color, we put up and painted all the moulding as well as repainted the ceiling a bright semi gloss white. The kitchen looks so much better now. This is a temporary fix until we can tear the kitchen out and do a proper renovation.

So before:


You can see our crazy floor that I love but I'm convinced the next home owners will rip it out. After:










I found this paint by number bird a few years ago. I picked the wall color without even thinking about this painting and it matches. I really like this color. (proof here: schoolroom)



So overall I'm happy with the way it turned out. I can certainly live with it for a year or two until we save up enough money to redo the kitchen. Next up for the blog: my living room redo and my amazing hallway redo.

More kitchen progress...

You know those faux drawer fronts they put right below the sink? Well we tore ours out and were looking for some metal mesh to put there. They had some at Lowe's for $30 a sheet - ouch.

Lo and behold we found something that would work at Goodwill for get this $1.99! Gotta love Goodwill. We are not sure what it was originally for but it worked perfectly for our drawer fronts. I wish I would have taken a picture of it before but picture the white metal in a round flower pot shape.

Brian took some old moulding we had laying around and built a frame for it, shoved it in there and I love it. Now I need to prime it and paint it the brown cabinent color.

Our upper cabinents are all painted, moulded and hardwared, our floor is done, wall paint is done, curtains are done. All we need to do is put crown moulding on the ceiling and baseboard moulding. I bought some of those neat chrome drawer organizers, they kind that you can pull out. What a difference! Makes our cabinents functional. I need to buy about 6 more but they are $30 a piece so I'll have to buy them as we get some money.

I'll try to have updated pics tomorrow. For now here are the faux drawer fronts.

Floor progress

Our floors are stripped and Brian put a coat of white primer to see what needed to be further sanded.
Soon it will be time to put the floor tiles down.



The hallway also will have tiles.



Oh and I did get my flowers.

More kitchen progress....

The kitchen is coming along. I think I will be back to painting the cabinents tonight. Brian is probably going to rip out the kitchen floor on Saturday so I don't have much time to finish the cabinents. I ordered some vintage swiss dot fabric to make some curtains and need to find some fabric for under the sink. We've decided (for now) to leave the plate and cup cabinent doors off and we still need to add some moulding so it looks nice. Here's some pics so far.

First coat of primer on the inside.



The plates cupboard. Notice that it needs some trim on the bottom

Before:



After:



We painted the bottom cabinents "cargo brown" by Ralph Lauren, added some vintage drawer pulls (on clearance at Lowe's for $.97 each) and some really neat knobs on the bottom (not on clearance). Really makes a difference.



I got these blue milk glass knobs on eBay.



Before:

After:



These weren't our first choice for lights but we like them. The give off LOTS of light now. Our kitchen is very bright with the white ceiling and the cream cabinents. We still need to put up some crown moulding.



We laid out some of the new floor tiles and it is going to look great. The colors are aqua and coffee brown. Lots of work but it will be so nice in there.

The kitchen project that won't end...

I must admit that the kitchen is wearing me down. I gave myself until the end of March (and it looks like we will be done before that) but the endless painting is driving me nuts. We are painting the top cabinents in Ralph Lauren "Edwardian Linen" with turquoise blue on the inside (scored that paint for $2.00 at Lowe's). The bottom cabinents will be painted a dark chocolate brown.

So far I have half the lower cabinents done. One coat of primer and 4 coats of brown paint. Brian will be installing the new hardware tonight. The upper cabinents are waiting for sanding so I can put the final coats of paint on them.

Brian is going to try to rip out the floor on Saturday and then we can see what we're dealing with. The floor tiles came in and they are exactly what we wanted and will look really good. I keep telling myself that it will look nice when it's done. It will but will it ever be done?????

Spent so far:
Paint & supplies: $60.00
Lights: $108.00
Paneling: $30.00
Floor & supplies: $178.00 (so far)
Sink: $0.00
Faucet: $98.00 on clearance!
Garbage cans for floor junk: $36.00

What do you do at 10:00 pm?

I paint ceilings and enlist the help of my husband. On Saturday we primed and put one coat of paint on the kitchen ceiling. It made a huge difference in brightness. I was amazed. When we walked in the kitchen on Sunday morning I thought our roof had blown off or someone had raised our ceiling while we slept.

It did need another coat but since it was Sunday I didn't have to do it. So off to church we went.

About 10:00 pm, I felt restless. So out came the paint and ladder and up I went to put the last coat of paint on the ceiling. I then decided to clean the kitchen, do the dishes and mop the floor. The funny part is that Brian didn't think I was crazy. Guess he is used to it by now. So about midnight I crawled in bed. Was I exhausted? Nope. This is the part of my pregnancy where I can't sleep. Fortunately for Brian, I didn't get up and paint something. I just thought about what I would paint.

The next phase in the kitchen makeover is to hang the paneling and prime it, scrub the kitchen cabinents and sand, and then prime and paint. We are waiting on floor samples so we can confirm that the blue/brown scheme is what we're going for. I can hardly wait!

Lest you think...

Lest you think that I have forsaken working out, I have not. I went for 3 30 minute walks this week, lifted weights twice, took the girls for a run and did the painting squats workout. This workout entails squatting down to paint and then leaping up on a chair to reach the ceiling. I painted the hallway and Brian installed the moulding and chair rail - finally. We have said we needed to get it done about 6 months ago, lol.

Now we are about to embark on the $300 fast kitchen makeover. Our original plan was gut the whole kitchen, redo the floor and buy new cabinents. We still want to do that but don't have the $$$ for it now. Also the baby arrives in June and I want running water this summer.

So we found some really cool turquoise and coffee colored peel and stick vinyl tiles that we are going to put down on the floor. Right now there is white vinyl and I hate that it shows everything. Brian will rip that up and replace the subfloor and then lay down the tiles. We are going to do a retro checkerboard pattern.

Then I will be painting the cabinents a creamy white and adding some retro 30's hardware. The walls will be a light tan-ish color and I will paint the dark wood beadboard ceiling a glossy white. We also purchased some new pendant lights with bright red shades from Lowes (think cheap). We have a new sink out in the garage that Brian got for free so we may install that. We are for sure getting a new facet as the one we have sprays your stomach everytime you turn it on.

Most of the money will be going to the floor but I think we can do it all in our budget. It will look so much better and brighter and I will be able to live with it for awhile!

Here's the before: