BEFORE:
A little over a month ago I began
another round of renovations in the kitchen. Well, more makeover than reno, but still a lot of work for a gal on her own, on a budget and a short schedule!
BEFORE:
The goal was to brighten everything up in there- with the dark floor, counter, walls and woodwork the first thing out of most visitors' mouths was, "Where's the lightswitch?"
AFTER:
Not anymore!
Last week a new visitor came in and said, "Oh, you're house is so cute!"
People familiar with the old kitchen go with, "WOW!"
Either way, I'm pretty pleased with myself!
I love the way it turned out!
While I had the table out of the kitchen I decided to leave it out there in the garage until I got around to refinishing it (there was some pretty bad damage to the top.) To fill in the spot I brought the love seat in from the living room, as well as the trunk I'd been using as a coffee table.
I'm actually loving having a couch in the kitchen! Since the dining table is right there, and the weather has been so accommodating for eating on the deck we really don't miss the table at all. And it's kind of nice to have a comfy place to hang out with whoever is cooking! Though, I'm sure we'll want it back once the weather turns cold again!
So how did I do it all, you ask? Pretty much as you'd imagine:
Clean like crazy, and sand everything down:
Clean up all the dust, then prime everything at least once.
Once everything is whited out and you can actually see what colors look like, make final color decisions.
I painted the walls first in Benjamin Moore's Mascarpone, then the cupboard interiors in Ben Moore's Light Mint, and then the cabinet bases and doors in Valspar's Ultra/Anthem White. I rolled and brushed the cabinet bases, and sprayed the doors with my handy-dandy
Porter-Cable spray gun.
I would have loved to do a Ben Moore on the cabinets as well since the paint is so much nicer to work with, but their whites were too grey! When everything was dry I re-hung the cabinet doors that were going back up (I wanted to leave open shelving both to show off my pretty things and to open things up in there a bit!), attached the old hardware, and was done!
TA-DA!
So what do you think, did I accomplish "brighter"? I think so! And I even finished ahead of schedule- 5 whole hours before Hubby's parents arrived from India!
Now to do something about those floors and counters... ha ha!
Now head on over to Susan's place at
Between Naps on the Porch to see what fab things everyone else in Blogland has been up to!
