My Favorite Room in Our House - The Kitchen!!

I know it's been a while! But I keep switching things up in this room, even in the "after" pictures, you'll see how I've been moving things around. I finally think I got enough pictures for you...so here you go!

This was our kitchen before:

Then, I thought about doing something like this...

I actually ended up choosing a bright green (Grass Cloth by Behr) for the kitchen walls, since we already had so much blue in the bedrooms. And I love it!! It's so bright and fun :)

And those cabinets... They took a few weeks and our kitchen was a MESS, but we got started just about as soon as we moved in, so at least we skipped the step of clearing out the cabinets. And yes, I painted inside the cabinets as well. They were just so dark and I knew it would look cleaner (and make me feel happier) if they were nice and white inside too.

First we took the cabinets off and removed all hardware. AND I would recommend numbering the cabinets somehow before you take them down, so you know where they go back instead of trying to make them fit like a puzzle (what we ended up doing!!). Then I had to fill in the holes with wood putty since they were in the middle (why?!) and I didn't want to leave them like that! Then I wiped them with deglosser. You can buy it at Wal-mart, it makes the surface more paintable, like liquid sandpaper. It was so easy, I just had to wipe them down with the deglosser and you could see them, well, get un-glossy.

It took 2 coats of primer. When doing the cabinets I waited at least a day before flipping it over and doing the other side. Which really made this take forever!! I did two coats (maybe three in some parts) of paint (Almond Cream by Behr). My kitchen (and garage) were a mess for a while...

 

  

(And, yes, that would be contact paper from the dollar store!)  

 

Picking out new hardware was so hard! I love oil rubbed bronze, but everything else in the kitchen is satin nickle and our appliances are stainless steel, so I didn't feel like it would go very well. So I decided to go with a pewter. However, Home Depot and Lowe's didn't really have anything in a pewter, so I picked them out online from knobs and hardware!

I believe these were cheaper than the ones in the store anyway so that's pretty sweet. (You can see my knobs here and my pulls here). I tried spray painting the hinges, but that turned out awful, so we got new ones - thankfully Home Depot had those in pewter!! My brother-in-law helped my husband put all the hardware back on. We used this template for drilling holes for the knobs. It really helped make sure they all went in the same place, totally worth it for a few bucks!

My father-in-law came over with his level and I let him and my hubby have fun hanging everything back up in place. I love my new kitchen!

   

 

    

And the dining room side with my Craigslist table. It needs some work, but I love the style and the bench.


Also, just got this table runner from Pier1 today! Isn't it so fun?!

 

 

If you have any questions about the cabinet process just let me know, it was actually not that difficult, it just takes a while, but it totally worth it. I just love being in my kitchen now!!

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Remembering 9/11

It's been 11 years today. Wow. 

It's been so long already but I still remember the crazy mess of how I felt that day. Confusion. Sadness. Terror. Compassion. Patriotism. Unity.

I also remembered delivering newspapers around our neighborhood that day thinking the world was ending or something like that and an old man came up to me and said, "Beautiful day, isn't it?" I remember thinking he was crazy and must not have known what was going on - I sure didn't want to break it to him, so I said "yup" and just continued along my route. I remember hanging the American flag printed on newspaper in our window. United We Stand.

I shared this video with my class today. Watch it if you get a chance.

Toward the middle/end of the video the video shows countries around the world supporting and mourning with America. It was a touching piece that I had not seen before. Hard not to cry in front of my students! (I definitely teared up.)

 

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