The Kitchen Is Finished (Almost)

Who's ready for summer??  My goodness I sure am!  It's March and there is snow on the ground here and I just find the whole thing ridiculous.  Bring on the flip flops and warm weather already.

Well, I have finally finished the kitchen updates.  At least I have finished my parts.  I say that because the kitchen still has maroon countertops.  When we move out of this house my parents are going to update the countertops with one of those kits and put in a new sink.  It's best to wait until we are no longer in the house so the countertops do not get messed up and they'll look new for when they sell the house. 

So for now just imagine the countertops white with gray mixed in there.  Let's start with the ugly before pictures.

I had already started painting when I remembered to take a before picture.  These are real wood cabinets.  Not the cheap builder grade cabinets.  After years of use they were just gross and dirty. 

The cabinets above the stove have always been in the way when trying to carry on a conversation with someone sitting at the bar.  You would have to bend down to see them and talk.  It was just annoying and weird. 

After much convincing and begging to my mom she finally let us take down the cabinets above the stove.  Our plan was to take the cabinet on the far left and move it beside the cabinet on the far right. 

This is the view from the other side of the cabinets.  See how they were just blocking everything off.  Piece by piece we tore down the cabinets.

Holy wow!  What a difference it made by taking the cabinets down.  Yes, we lost a little bit of cabinet space but it is worth it for the openness it gives to this small kitchen.

Are you ready for the after pictures?

Now all the light from the bay window shines in and you can speak to someone without bending down to look at them. 

I painted all the upper cabinets just plain ol' regular white.  The bottom cabinets are painted in Light French Gray from Sherwin Williams.  I also painted the window ledge white to match the cabinets.  I will paint the wood in front of the bar stools but that will be done shortly before we move as well.  I don't want the boys kicking and scratching up the paint. 

Did you notice the lighting was different too?  We took the bronze light fixture in the center of the kitchen and moved it to another spot in the house.  The brass light fixture over the sink was turned into a recessed light and we added more recessed lights over the bar and in the kitchen area.  Now there's 7 lights in this area instead of just 2. 

To save money I spray pained all the knobs and handles brushed nickel on the cabinets.  I had planned on painting the hinges as well but they were beyond gross so we replaced them all.

That about does it for this room.  Now on to the next project.  We still need to paint all the doors and trim, paint bathroom cabinets in both bathrooms, paint the walls in the boys room, and paint the mantel around the fireplace. 

I better get busy!

A "New" Way to Store Spices

Well hello friends!  It has been quite some time since I did a post about anything.  I miss doing regular posts but I just don't have time currently with Autumn being so small.  But I did manage to do a very easy and simple update that I thought I would share.

Now, I'm sure we've all looked on Pinterest for spice storage ideas.  There's only about a million ideas out there.  So I'm going to make it a million and one. 

I've tried a few different things over the years when it comes to spice racks and storage.  In our last house I had Ikea spice racks mounted on the inside of our pantry door.  I loved the storage that way.  I used the plastic Gerber baby food containers to put the spices in. 

After doing the storage that way I noticed really quickly the spices would spill out of the bottom of the containers.  I didn't lay the containers flat on the racks but instead propped them up so I could see the label on the lid.  It didn't spill much but it was enough to be annoying but I just lived with it.

Now that Autumn is big enough to get baby food I'm going through jars pretty quickly.  I give her the Beech Nut brand baby food.  I love the jars the food comes in.  They're the perfect size for spices and the same amount of jars fit on the Ikea racks. 

So after I finish a jar I take the label off and wash the jar.  The label sometimes leaves a residue but it's not anything that Goo Be Gone can't fix. 

Then I spray painted the lid just whatever color I had on hand.

Yesterday I bought myself a label maker so what better way to test it out than by making labels for my spice jars.

Isn't that cute?!?  The jars are 4.25 ounces in size.  Beech Nut does have other jars but they're short and squatty.  I like these better because they are taller and just look nicer. 

If you're in the market for spice jars go buy some baby food even if you don't have a baby.  These are about $.80 each at Walmart.  That's a pretty good price for spice jars.  I've seen the same size for much more on other sites.

That's it!  I hope I have revolutionized your spice storage world. 

The Power of Paint {Kitchen Facelift}

Usually when people get facelifts it is to make them look better.  More fresh or younger looking.  When we moved into our house our kitchen looked liked she was about 40 years old.  So we needed to give her a facelift so she could feel more like a 25 year old.  She fought it along the way but in the end I'm pretty sure she's happy.  Confident...pretty...think Marilyn Monroe standing on the air vent confident!

Too much?!?

Moving on then...

There are only a few more rooms left in our house to show you.  Today I'm showing you our kitchen and the changes we made to update it. 

I only have these two before pictures.  These cabinets are just your basic builder grade cabinets.  There isn't really anything special to them.  We were lucky that the first owners of this house added the crown moulding to the top.  So at least we had that to work with. 

The first time we tackled this project we were just starting out as DIYers so we were not exactly sure what we were doing.  Matt took off all the doors and lightly sanded them down.  He then primed and painted them with latex paint. 

We picked out a milk chocolate brown color for the cabinets.  When we were done painting I thought I was in love.  I had always loved the look of brown cabinets.  And in some cases I still do.  So this is how the cabinets stayed for about 6 years.

 

You can see in the picture above that we hadn't even painted behind the oven yet.  Over the years the paint around the knobs started to chip off.  There were nicks from the boys climbing on the cabinets and running into them with cars.

This year when we decided to put this house on the market I knew these cabinets would need a paint job.  Plus, my taste had changed and I was over my brown cabinet phase.  These pictures make me cringe.  Eeeewwwweeee!

This time around instead of sanding I used oil based primer.  I painted these cabinets back in February and there isn't a single nick around the knobs.  So oil based primer holds up much better.

And here is our kitchen today.

We have changed so many things in this kitchen.  This is another spot in the house that took me forever to realize what I really liked. 

Here is a list of changes:
Painted cabinets (Fieldstone by Benjamin Moore, island color is Black Beauty by Benjamin Moore)
Installed new floor tile
Updated all appliances to black
New sink
New faucet
Added floating shelves
Decrapified the kitchen counters.  Did you see all the crap I used to have on there?  What tha?

And that's it folks!  100 meeeellion times better don't ya think?


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