Sep 1, 2010

Kitchen Makeover

Yikes!  It's hard to believe that this was our kitchen one year ago.  When we bought our town house this is exactly what it looked like- the horrible border, two layers of caked-on wallpaper (hard to see in pics), 21 year-old blinds, stale cabinets, and oh yeah, the gi-NORMOUS light fixture.  How can you miss that thing?

Our kitchen was the second project we tackled once we moved in.  The first room that we worked on was our living room





The knobs were actually pretty decent so we kept them



Just your standard maple cabinets...


And here's how the kitchen looks today!  This project was a BIG one for us...our biggest yet.  All said and done, I'd say we worked on this extreme makeover for about a month- maybe a little longer.  But hey, well worth it in my book. 


I LOVE, love, LoVe, lOvE how it turned out.  We get so much sunlight in here and the feeling is super airy and open. 

The two corner glass front cabinets and light fixture is new. 


I'm happy with the way the knobs look against the Valspar Swiss Coffee paint. 
 

New Blinds!!!  What a DIFFERENCE blinds make people.



We peeled and ripped wallpaper and argued and sweat and peeled wallpaper and almost gave up and ripped more wallpaper.  The wallpaper just kept appearing. 

We've mastered the art of sanding, smoothing, priming, painting and drying.  

Today, Rob has quite an extensive handyman list of accomplishments- but a year ago, installing a new dishwasher was a pretty impressive task (for a city boy) to do himself, to say the least.  Thank goodness for handy hubbies! Muah.




14 comments:

Michelle @ Dream Home DIY said...

What an awesome transformation!

Brandi Nell said...

Okay - so I found your blog via Better After... and I think we are kindred spirits. My hubs and I have been working on our "not so pretty when we bought it" townhouse since November of 2008. I love all you have done! Looks FAB!

Home overhauls can be stressful/time consuming/and MAJOR FUN! Perhaps we can be blog buddies!

Looking forward to seeing more!

xoxo,
Brandi
brandinell.blogspot.com

Lauren @ 31diy said...

The white cabinets are fantastic! Major, major improvement.

Hilary said...

Love how it all becomes so much more modern in white!

Emily said...

Gorgeous! I love how bright and updated it looks!

anna said...

This looks fabulous. I want to paint our wooden cabinets white too. Can I ask if you had to sand them first? And what paint did you use? Did you paint the inside too?Any other advice? Thanks!

Ray* said...

anna: thanks for the comment. Yes, we sanded the cabinets before painting. It's important to do this first because the paint will take to the wood better. And sanding the cabinets also removes any protective coating that may be on them. The paint we used was Behr- Swiss Coffee. And no, we didn't paint the inside. I definetely recommend applying a protective coat on top of the paint. Polyurathane is good for oil based paints and Polycrylic is good for latex and water based paints. This extra step will help your cabinets last much longer.

Hope this was helpful

Morgan @ PepperDesignBlog.com said...

Beautiful! Love how it turned out!!

Me said...

I have been dying to paint my kitchen cabinets since the day we bought our house! Your cabinets look amazing, maybe I'll finally be able to convince my husband by showing them how good yours look.

Cindy @ Marriedtothemilitary {dot} net said...

I want to know what kind of paint you used on your cabinets? Mine needs to be repainted and yours look amazing

Ray* said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ray* said...

Hi Cindy. The color we used on our cabinets is Behr Swiss Coffee. I don't think it matters what sheen you chose (i.e. gloss, flat, etc.), just as long as you plan finish your cabinets off with a coat of polycrylic - which I recommend. The paint guy at Lowes who helpd us recommended we chose an off-white color b/c he said that pure white is too white. But it's really up to you

Good Luck and let me know when you've finished so I can check it out.

Thanks for reading this post!!!

xoxoxo said...

You make it look so easy! What do you do with 20yrs of grease that is hard to clean off? Am I the only one?!

Unknown said...

What a difference! LOVE the white cabinets. Great, great job!!

Toni