The Kitchen (the real reveal)

Kitchen Remodel

When I saw that Whisperwood Cottage was hosting a talent scout kitchen link-up, I decided it was time to get my old kitchen post squared away. Now I know there are zillions of better kitchens then mine, but I figured it would give me a good reason to get some better pictures up!

 I posted on my kitchen back in Sept 2011. This was before a really did much blogging. I threw a few pictures in the post just to show my friends. The pictures were of different projects, different years, some were showing a project, and you could see the rest of the kitchen half finished in the background. You probably get the idea that it was not one of my best posts.

As far as I can tell, I only linked this post up attached to my "Best of 2011" post and have also linked up some of the projects individually, so hopefully I'm not re-linking this!

So here are a few pictures that I found and did some editing on. They still aren't perfect, but so much better. I also found some good before pics.

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"The Kitchen"!

-The Before-

In this kitchen, pink was painted between all of the cupboards. There was nice gold hardware too. The pink cupboard areas actually matched the pink walls, well at least the walls that weren't covered with bright yellow tile (floor to ceiling bright yellow tile). All of it did match the yellow, pink, and purple flower basket border along the ceiling though....so no worries, haha.

Pictured below are the yellow doors that you passed as you entered the kitchen. You can see that nice fruit and flower basket boarder through the doors.

This picture was taken after my sister, and I sledge hammered the pantry out to build a built-in table eating area. You can see what I used the pantry doors for HERE. 

The stair spindles were between the kitchen and the stairway. This later became a wall/seat for the built-in eating area. This picture also shows the pink walls. I know, poor pictures. Never knew there were such things as blogs when I took this. 

Oh ya, looks like I'm a lot of help here! In this pic you can see the vinyl flooring  and even a small shot of the florecent lights.

Door before...and more pink walls.

Close up of that nice yellow tile that was covering half the kitchen from floor to ceiling!

OK, so there are the before pics. Now for the afters!

- Afters -

Open shelving. I've had these for about a year now....I highly recommend open shelving! It really helps messy people like me, stay organized.

These are backed with chalkboard paint and you can read more about that process HERE. 

Best part about all this shelving is getting to decorate it!

For more information on how I remade the wire baskets with scrapbook paper click HERE. (They hold extra spices and glassware.) 

You can read about where I find many of my display items HERE.  I'm pretty sure it's titled "The Goodwill and Self Control"! 

I'm glad I choose chalkboard paint to back the cabinets. I love the pop of color that the black creates with all the items on the shelves, and it's also fun to use for holidays and little notes.

I really wanted to salvage the old cupboards. There are times I've had my regrets about not putting in new ones, but these cupboards were solid, and huge (which is good and bad) and I'm a salvager at heart, so I kept them, stripped them, repainted them and added hardware.
Remember in the beginning they had pink in between the doors and gold hardware.

Here they are after stripping, priming, painting and new hardware. I do really like them.

To fix the "old deep cupboard" problem, we made pull-out drawers. I couldn't live without them now! A "must have" for houses I live in from here on out!

If you'd like a tutorial see here: DIY Pull-Out Drawers Tutorial  (never mind the missing baseboard, we were mid-kitchen reno).

Remember the sledge hammered old pantry? 

Now it's a built-in eating area! I knew It would drive me crazy to have to go out of the kitchen into the dinning room to feed kids, and to visit with people that I had over for coffee, so this project gets my #1 vote for kitchen practicality. We use it about 6 times per day! 

The table was a basic round, wood banquet table. I cut the sides off so it would fit perfectly. I bought it off Craigslist because I liked the vintage looking legs. 

I found the lamp shade at Goodwill and used the $15 hanging pendent light wiring from Home Depot to hang it on. 

Remember the door before? 

Now there's chalkboard on the bottom. It's usually called the "chore door", and I write the kid's to-do lists on it. You can read more about that process HERE.

 If I only would have known about the simplicity of chalk paint and wax before this project. 

Here is the sink area. We had a friend hook us up with some really reasonable granite! The company used their "scraps" to make our counter tops. You'd never know it, but there are two different kinds of granite counters in the kitchen.  A different one on each side. Since we agreed to do this, they gave us an incredible deal! 

I still really like my back splash tile boarder, and I decided to replace all the yellow tile with white subway tile, all the way up to the ceiling. I love it!

All the tile work we did ourselves. The back splash boarder was originally 6 strips high when I purchased it.  I cut it down to four, and pieced the rest together, so I could save on costs. 

I must have taken these pictures around October, because there is a spiderweb towel on the stove. 

Here are a couple extra pictures of the kitchen. 

Another picture of the chalkboard shelves. 

Remember the old yellow doors that lead into the kitchen? Now they are white. I'm glad that the previous owners kept the original shutter doors. Looks like there is a kitchen "greeter" there.  

Thanks for visiting my kitchen. I know I've posted on some of the individual projects of this room before, so this may be a bit of a re-hash, but now they are all together (and in decent picture form). 

If my dishwasher or refrigerator breaks, the repair is just a quick Google search away with sites like PartSelect available.  

I really do enjoy this room. Hopefully it will give you some fun ideas. 

 --Katie

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