Remodelaholic

 

• removing a cabinet and added a dishwasher
• removing the double oven and replaced it with that cabinet
• painting the existing cabinets white
• painting the existing knobs and hinges with oil-rubbed bronze spray paint
• spray painting and installing a new light fixture
• painting the room

• added new countertops to the kitchen
• sold our green fridge and replaced it with a white one
• painted the trim around the window white

Here’s the opposite side of the room where we removed the double oven, replaced it with the cabinet, and added new countertops. We also started painting the stairway for a future project.

• replace the laminate tile with wood floors
• paint the remainder of the trim in this room
• paint the door in this room
• paint the walls and above the cabinets a shade that is similar to the color of the tiles on the backsplash
• replace hinges with new and add glass knobs

I haven’t posted on our kitchen in a while, but doing so makes me so excited. I love the transformation and can’t believe the difference between the two!

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

If you enjoyed this post please check out these other great kitchen renovations:

What we did: painted cabinets, painted walls, installed tile back splash, and new light fixtures. And since we’re DIYers it all cost under $500! Winning. In an effort to avoid a snarky comment from Bill I should mention – I told Bill I had this great idea for a “weekend” project and I worked on it for about 1 weekend and then he worked on finishing it for weeks and weeks. He’s the greatest 

We also updated the sink area by installing pullouts on the “fake” drawers under the sink. Perfect area to stash the bottle brush and sink plug.

The one decorated corner.

Another picture of the main kitchen area.

We also changed out the accessories in the “dining room”area. We use to have large fruit prints up and now we have some lovely white dishes.

A close up of the dish wall.

I am loving my *new* kitchen. I’m even inspired to keep it cleaner than I use to  Of course, we are not completely finished! We want to add some “pops” of color, some DIY subway artwork, and “EAT” on one wall. And my goal is to sell our current dining room chairs and buy some new ones like these from West Elm (and I just noticed that the color scheme exactly matches our new kitchen!)

Cabinets: Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations in Pure White (no glaze)
Paint: Martha Stewart Cement Gray
Track Lighting: Lowe’s or Home Depot
Pendant Light: Hampton Bay (Home Depot)
Tile: American Olean (I think) Matte Gray 2X3

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

If you enjoyed this post please check out these other great kitchen renovations:

From Old to Completely New; Modern Kitchen

Kitchen Remodel, Keeping the Best from the Past!!

Kitchen Backsplash Tiles, Now Beadboard

From Oak Kitchen Cabinets to Painted White Cabinets

White Kitchen Renovation

It seems only fitting for the final kitchen 'before and after' to come directly following our 2 year anniversary post - sort of an homage to the journey we've taken in our marriage during that time. Of course, this condo has taken quite a journey itself!  So, without further ado, I give you our kitchen - before, during, and after.

Notice the hen border along the top, and the striped wallpaper that actually contained hearts and flowers. Theresa, Braddy, and Whammy painstakingly removed every inch of this wallpaper the week before the wedding.

Observe the chipping acrylic (or whatever it is?) on the cabinet doors.  I'm sure these cabinets were nice at one time, but they had clearly seen their day.  And what's with the fluorescent light above the sink?

Ah, the refrigerator kegerator. Hubs and his roommate drilled a hole into the fridge to attach a tapper, hooked up to the keg inside. Unfortunately, they removed all the shelves and threw them away. (???)

And finally, note the yellowed linoleum floor that was always sticky, no matter how many times you washed it.

Phase 1 was clearly the most impressive - ripping out all the old cabinets and countertop and replacing them with brand new ones.  All of this work was done by Hubs and his dad the week of the wedding.  I still can't believe what they accomplished.  I was clearly nowhere around (and probably freaking out about something wedding-related), so I don't have any pictures of the work being done, only pictures I had from various times thereafter.
This picture was taken on my birthday, around 2 months after the wedding.  You can see the new cabinets, and also the paper floor.  Yes, paper.  Hubs started ripping up the linoleum before we had a game plan for the flooring.

To be fair, it did make cleanup so. much. easier.

Then the big fluorescent light fell down one morning, pushing the replacement of it to the top of the priority list.

Given that the hole in the ceiling was off-center, we were forced to get flexible track lighting.  I absolutely love it now.

Doing dishes by hand was becoming quite tedious, so we replaced the "potwasher."

Next to go was the fridge. I could only do so much without shelves.

And since one can only live so long with a paper floor, that was next to go.

Then came the stove and the microwave.

And in an unplanned turn of events, we decided to add a tile backsplash.

Next came the knife rack.

And then the very unplanned corner cabinets, tile countertop, and shelves.

Followed by cabinet hardware (Daddy, I did almost all these by myself too!)...

And FINALLY by baseboards. (HOT!!)

We went from this:

To this:

I cannot. believe. we turned this kitchen into such a beautiful room by ourselves (and family, of course)! Yes, it took a longggg time.  But it was SO WORTH IT.

Now, if you'll excuse me while I go bake something in our super hot kitchen...

{Check out all the pictures here}

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

I loved my cobalt blue kitchen. Afterall, blue has always been my favorite color. (Yes, I love orange too, but blue has been with me through thick and thin and you can't forsake a friend like that!). But after 7 years, the "change" bug was really biting me. And leaving quite an itchy spot!!

Those cupboards always bugged me. Man I wanted to paint them. But it just seemed so sinful. But a good friend nudged me in the "go for it" direction, so I went for it, baby! My white and cobalt blue kitchen is now what my dad calls machine gray. Sounds pretty, eh?

Cabinets are black on the bottom and white on top, painted with Behr Semi Gloss Enamel. It was expensive paint at about $35 a gallon, but last I checked, that's a penny in the bucket compared to buying new cabinets!! We went with that brand because that's what the dude at Lowe's said would be our best bet. I also took all the hardware (pulls) off and spray painted them silver. Again, quite a bit cheaper that new. However, if you have to buy new, don't go anywhere until you look at Ebay. I don't know why, but brand new on ebay is waaaaay cheaper than in the store and there is an amazing variety to choose from.

Money saving tip: mix your own paint. This can be scary, but just use your brain and remember that blue and yellow make green. I had some white on hand, some black, some blackish brown, some gray....

We (me and my dear mother who came from Iowa to help me with this overwhelming project) stirred it all together and tested it on the wall until I had something I liked.

Beautimous!!! no?? I'm like a proud parent looking at this here corner of my kitchen.  

Can't say I've ever had a "back splash" per se, just painted it the same as the walls! Shall I even go so far as to admit, I never really thought about doing cool things on that space of the wall until a few years ago? Back splash? What's a back splash?

I was making a mad dash in to town one Saturday to run 5 errands in

enough time allotted for about 2 errands. As I'm coming in to town, there is a big sign spouting "Rummage Sale". I'm still a recovering garage sale addict, so slips now and then are inevitable.

I stop. Amidst my amazing finds was a huge roll of paintable wallpaper!!! For a QUARTER! I was thinking that stuff might make a neat back splash, and I was even willing to pay for a roll at Lowes. It always pays to stop, no matter how big of a hurry you're in!

Mom measured and cut it down to the size needed, then I took it outside and spray painted it silver.

We used Elmer's Glue mixed with a little water to adhere it to the wall. Afterall, we're into using what we have on hand, and wallpaper paste is not something I had on hand!

counter tops when we bought the house

If you recall, about a month or so ago (see posting from September 19th, 2010), my mom and I decided to try something a little crazy and paint my countertops to save vookoo bucks! Ya'll were quite freaked out about such a wild idea! I LOVED how they turned out, except for my "oops" that I blogged about and that was that I rolled it on with too much pressure and didn't put the paint on thick enough. It had a couple VERY TINY scratches after a month, and being able to see my roller marks was just driving me bonkers. After being the Guinea pig, my mom now knowing what NOT to do, decided to paint hers. It turned out A-MAZ-ING.

 

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

If you liked this post please check out our past kitchen renovation ideas:

Kitchen With Green Cabinets

Hi! I'm Stephanie from Binkies and Briefcases and I'm waaay beyond excited to have our kitchen featured here today! Remodelaholic is one of the very first blogs I started following and has been such an inspiration to me! We live in an old split-level house that was built in 1965, so we need LOTS of inspiration. My husband and I live on one income, have two little ones and another on the way, so we try to do all of our remodels on a tight budget. That's why we turned to Craigslist and ReStore when it was time to overhaul our kitchen.
So here it is, a story about how patience and hard work can get you what you want... i.e this-

There is still a little bit of work to be done, but I thought it would be fun to look back and see how far we've come.

This was our kitchen before. I really don't have any kind words about it. The old disintegrating cabinets used to leave my dishes full of sawdust, the shelves were sagging and not secure, so I couldn't use half the cabinets anyway, there was a giant burn mark on the laminate counter, fake bricks, the floor wasn't level....I could go on, but I won't. I just tried to focus on the fact that one of the reasons we bought this house was because of the large rooms with a lot of potential.

We got an $8,000 tax refund that year, so I decided that was going to be my budget for the remodel. For everything. New cabinets, new counters, new appliances, new floors, etc. For this room AND the attached dining room.

The dining room before. Yeah, it was bad, y'all.

Even though $8,000 is a lot of money, that is a very,very,very tiny budget for remodeling an entire kitchen and dining room. So said the people at Lowes, anyway, when they quoted me $12,000 just for cabinets. There was no way that I was pouring the typical 25-30 grand into this kitchen. We would never be able to recoup an investment like that in our area. Plus, we were doing a cash-only refund and I don't have that much extra cash lying around. I was NOT putting our young family into that kind of debt for granite counter tops.

Of course, I am entirely too stubborn and impatient to live with a kitchen looking that that for very long. (I know I keep saying "I," Eddie actually did most of the work, but he was great about letting me make most of the decisions since the kitchen is mostly my space. He did veto the tile, though. More on that later.)

The whole thing needed to be gutted. Don't worry, we reused the cabinets and counters for storage in our garage and basement.

I made a list of what I wanted in my dream kitchen. It looked like this:

-nice cabinets
-solid surface counters
-stainless appliances
-a new floor (preferably tile)
-a new back splash (preferably tile)
-an island
-a new pantry door
-pretty molding

Ok, so the floors and the backsplash are not tile, but I can totally live with that. I still got everything on my list. Want to see?

Here we are 2 years later, after a lot of thrifting, recycling, sweat, and less than $8,000:

Yay! The cabinets are solid cherry wood and the counters are Silestone. They even have some cool custom features, like a pull-out spice rack and sheet pan dividers.

(hint for later: There's something a little off about the doors on both of these cabinets)

Plus they included the same pantry cabinet, decorative stove hood, appliance garage, and lazy susan corner cabinets that really jacked up the price of my cabinet quote from Lowes!

We still have a short to-do list in this area that includes crown molding for both the walls and the cabinets, shoe molding, and touch-up paint in a few areas. I'd also like to refinish the hand-me down table and get different chairs, but that is not very high on my priority list at the moment.

Cost break down:
Cabinets, Counters, Sink & Faucet: Craigslist, came as a set for $2,000
Uhaul rental-1day: $100
Hardware: $150
Labor to hang cabinets &; install counters and sink, and relocate dishwasher: $1,600
New floor: Home Depot, Allure Vinyl $800
Paint: $50 (Valspar Green Tea Leaf and Brandied Pear)
Lightfixtures: $50 (Lowes & Craigslist)
Island: $315, made from an old dresser we found at our local reuse center
Beadboard, wainscoting, and floor boards: $500
New window treatments: JC Penny $150
Stove: Free!! Craigslist (I bought it for $75, then sold our old one for $80)
Accessories: $0 Tempt-Tations line from QVC, all gifted. My family knows I collect them.
Table and Chairs: $0 hand-me-downs from my dad
Dining Room Shelves: Ana White's ledges- $40
Sewing Table: $50 Goodwill re-do
Dining Room Bench (not pictured): JC Penny on sale w/promo code: $120
Refigerator: hhgregg: $1,300

Total: $7,225

The remaining $775 left on my $8,000 budget will go toward the moldings and maybe a pot rack or a larger scale light fixture above the island.

We have even had an architect in the house who estimated that the value of the kitchen remodel was about $30,000. We realize that we will not get that kind of a resale value in our area, but it still feels pretty sweet to hear!

My tips for budget kitchen remodels (not that you asked):

1. Check Craigslist every day and your re-use center every week. So many people tell me how lucky we were to find this set, which of course is true, but I didn't just find it the first day I looked on Craigslist. It took months of research. Since we did our remodel, I've even found a gorgeous set of antique white painted walnut cabinets at the reuse center. That stung a little, because I would have bought those over mine in a heart beat, but they were also priced more than twice what I paid, so that took a little of the sting out. Be proactive. If you want something specific, like stainless appliances, check the appliance section of your local Craigslist multiple times a day. You better believe that stove was only listed for a few hours before I had an appointment with the sellers to go pick it up!

2. Find what you like and make it work in your space or know what you want and make it to work in your space. (Those are different.) Obviously, these cabinets and counters were not built for our kitchen, so there are some quirks. We had to relocate our frig and our dishwasher, three of the doors on the cabinets open the opposite way of how they should (No one has ever noticed this. Can you find them?), there is one faintly noticeable seam in the corner of the counter top, and the built in desk doesn't go all the way to the wall. Those were all minor prices to pay for a savings of about $25,000. I also knew I wanted an island, but our space was too narrow for one made from traditional cabinetry, so I searched (again, for months) and eventually found an old cruddy dresser with prefect bones to transform into a great island.

3. Patience and flexibility. This was the hardest part for me. Sometimes I get frustrated because it's been 2 years for crying out loud and this space still isn't finished, or because I have a great idea but we can't afford it at the moment. The best deals are collected over time and eventually God will provide, even if it's not on my time frame. (which would have been immediately, please) For instance, it was over a year in between installing the cabinets and counters and finding an amazing deal on a stove. Yes, it was frustrating using an old, ugly stove that constantly lost heat because the oven door was wonky, but eventually I got a beautiful new-to-me one for free. I also had to be flexible because I wanted a tile floor like nobody's business. I've owned three houses and never had real tile in my kitchen. I was saving tons of money in other areas, so I felt justified splurging on tile, but it would have meant that we had to replace the entire subfloor, which would have been a HUGE undertaking, not to mention added expense. Plus, it would have been an over-improvement for the neighborhood. Vinyl it was. I pouted for a while over the vinyl because I knew whatever we did in the kitchen would also go in both bathrooms and the foyer, but now I actually like the fact that the vinyl is easier to clean and better for the kids. Sometimes you can learn to love, or at least like, the compromises.

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

If you liked this post we hope that you will check out theses past kitchen renovation features!

Refinished Kitchen Cabinet Doors Painted White

Major Kitchen Overhaul: Island, Cabinets, Floor, Windows

When we first considered buying the house we currently live in, Mr.A and I made a list of pros and cons of moving and selling our house that we had just built two years earlier. One of the pros we listed on our sheet was NO large projects needed. HA HA! If you know anything about me at all, I love to just dive in to projects, I start projects while my husband is at work and doesn't know what is going on. (I've been trying to work on that by the way).


We moved into the Colonial as I like to call her, On October 1st. We started demolition of the kitchen the weekend of Thanksgiving. Yeah, ummm....I didn't waste time.



So now here is the real professional part of this blog, my floor plan drawings. They are literally drawings done by me and a black sharpie. Please don't e-mail me asking for this professional service, it's a one time deal. Ok, seriously, I didn't know how else to explain the layout so here it is:

See, I told you it was real professional like.  It's hard to explain to people through pictures what we did but we basically moved the kitchen into this useless funky room that had a fireplace and then we tore out the old kitchen and that's where our kitchen table, pantry and mudroom are located.  We  had to move the exterior door, put in a sliding glass door and used our fireplace for our oven.

That concludes the tour of the kitchen, now we are moving onto the funky/useless room.  This picture is taken from the position of the exterior door, facing to your left, the kitchen would be on your right and you can see through the one doorway into the dining room which is brown and blue:

This picture is taken from the hallway looking towards the exterior door, the kitchen would be on your  left.

This is the view from the doorway that leads to the dining room, the kitchen is behind the paneled wall. 

Now if you aren't totally confused, here's one of my favorite pictures, demolition!!!  I love using a sledge hammer and destroying things, maybe that's too much information for you.

When designing the kitchen we wanted something that would fit in with the rest of the house.  We were going for a more classic feel than a modern one.  The subway tile, white cabinets, drawer pulls and hardwood floors gave us the feel we were looking for and we often hear from people, "Wow, this really fits in with the style of  your home."  We also really like the layout and are glad we flipped things around.  The other kitchen was like the batcave, it was dark, smelly and you really couldn't hear what else was going on in the house.  That wasn't cool with me.


Some of my favorite things in my kitchen are that my oven is in the fireplace.  With little kids running around I never have to worry about them touching a hot oven when I'm trying to take something out of the oven.  I love, love, love my cupboards that have glass doors.  My pantry is wonderful and I'm really glad we decided to put one in the kitchen.  We have multiple closets in the  hallway behind the kitchen that we could have turned into a pantry as well but we decided against that.  Thank goodness!  I did order a bookshelf type cabinet that was supposed to go on the end of the island but somehow that didn't get ordered and by the time it was all figured out, everything was installed and done.  That is the one thing I wish I had but I can definitely live without it.


I am quite happy with the amount of cabinets we have.  If we didn't have the pantry then I would be really limited with space.    I did order a bookshelf type cabinet that was supposed to go on the end of the island but somehow that didn't get ordered and by the time it was all figured out, everything was installed and done.  Three years later there isn't anything I really would change about  my kitchen layout, design or style.  I think turned a dark, poorly designed area into a bright, well functioning kitchen for our family while staying under $15,000.  


Also, if you would like to see more of what we've done to our house, please check out our Cloffice Reveal,Mudroom Makeover and Pantry Makeover. 

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

If you liked this post please checkout our past kitchen renovation features such as these:

Quick Clean and Organize Your Cabinets

Kitchen Remodel - A Total Transformation

Kitchen Renovation Complete Overhaul

Complete Kitchen Remodel

Freshened-up Kitchen Remodel Around Existing Countertops

I'll start with a couple of before photos.  The first is looking into the kitchen from the lounge/dining room with me sitting at our temporary make shift island bench flipping through a magazine as I do!  There is also a closer view with Hubby caught out in his pj's! (He, he, he!!)

So the first job was to remove the shelving above the sink which I have since painted white and re-hung in my sons room (that story to come..).    Next was to tackle the floor and I don't think we knew how bad it was going to be........

Underneath we discovered this black thick and dried glue!  We tried sanding, we tried kerosene, we tried paint stripper....  It was an extremely slow and tiring task which seemed to take hours with only a small area exposed.

I know it sounds brutal and probably very dangerous but the one thing that did the trick with far less grief was .....  wait for it.....  a blow torch!!!!!  Scary stuff but hey it did the job beautifully!!!

Wow, look it is magic! The floors are being prep'd for sanding and the cupboards have magically turned white!!!  Thank you to Lisa for her fantastic paint job!

Notice the tiles above the sink with their embossed picture.  We thought we would be replacing those but Ben talked me into just trying the tile paint that is now available.  I must admit I was very skeptical but the result has been great!  I actually quite like the embossed look and we will now do the tiles behind the oven alcove as well...

Now that job was done, it was time to replace my (oh so handy and really did the job) makeshift island bench with a real one.  After doing the ring and run around, I discovered that many kitchen companies are not interested in just building you an island bench!!!  They want the whole deal...  

Just need to add the last door and put in the kick board....

I am really excited to show off Kristin's kitchen today.  Her kitchen is one of my favorite kitchen transformations in all of blogdom!  It is so inspiring, let's see what she did to create this:

overnight, how about 5 years to be exact.

So here is my before picture right before we moved in. Over the years I kept a binder with pictures of my dream kitchens and drooled over model homes with eat in islands and gourmet stove tops. Remember the kitchen from the movie Something's Gotta Give, talk about making my heart pitter-patter. It is renowned for its elegant simplicity.

I love white kitchens, and consider them to be a classic. In my mind, you can never go wrong with a white kitchen and there is such an elegance about them. I also love the look of cottage kitchens; I needed to come to a happy medium. Overall, in the end we achieved a pretty traditional kitchen yet toned down with a twinge of French and cottage.

Remove all of your doors
Prep the room covering everything you don’t want painted
Remove hardware and your hinges. 
If your cabinets have gaps or dings fill them with wood filler.
Empty all your cabinets
Degrease all the doors, draws and frames. Tsp is a great degreaser as is vinegar and hot water.
Sand everything I used an electric sander with medium grit (80 or 100).
Prime with oil based primer; Foam rollers will give you the look as though your cabinets have been sprayed.
Lightly sand

 
Caulk away. Caulk can be your best friend; hiding all imperfections and watching them magically disappear once the paint is applied.
Here is the exciting part, Paint your desired color using a foam roller or having them sprayed!!!
NOTE: Latex top coat paints will adhere perfectly to oil based primer. Latex primer paint over oil paint will not work at all.
Let it dry, buff out any drips and give it another coat.
Glaze,

Now…I can’t lie. After I had sanded all my bottom cabinets, primed and started to paint, superman came and saved the day! You see, we were doing this all ourselves because the quotes that came in made me gasp and I said who needs a painter I’ll do it myself. Did I mention I have 37 cabinets and 20 or so drawers? Then my hero (painter) who used to work for a large builder was out of a job and needed money came by! He gave me a quote that made me gasp, this time in a good way. I hired him immediately and told him to start, before he changed his mind. I was so excited and he probably thought I was a little crazy getting so giddy about paint. He finished sanding, priming and then sprayed our cabinets; he was done in 2 days. It most likely would have taken me at least 6 more weeks. We were left to reinstall cabinet doors and drawers, replace the hinges, hardware and glaze. This alone took us about 2 months prior to working about 2 months on adding height to the cabinets and rebuilding the island. I know that sounds like a lot of time but we have 3 little ones and only one of them in school full time. So this project was really only done in our spare time without jeopardizing family time. 

I really love the look of Staggered cabinets, I just didn't care for the price tag.

Build a box using pine plywood in a smooth finish.
Anchor the box to the top of your existing cabinets.

Apply new crown and nail to the top of your boxes.

*We went with a double stacked baseboard on the bottom and crown on the top of the baseboard.

Nail small wood trim to hide the seams between the old cabinet and the new addition.

This project came with lots of trial and error. You definitely need to be on the tolerant side if you are taking this on yourself. When something did not look right we took it down and started over. This is your time to get creative.  This is a big project but definitely worth all the elbow grease!

I have to admit I loved not having doors on my cabinets, I loved the open feel, I didn't like the dust. SO the glass went up.  I had painted all the oak doors creamy white prior to this.  They get pretty scuffed up in the process so I would have saved the painting for after the cuts were made.  Remove the center panel, a router would come in handy here....on our list of things to purchase this year.

 

Press the pane of glass into the groove, let it dry overnight. I still need to add a simple plastic frame clip just in case but I don't think that glass is going anywhere!

Before

After

The final shots:

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

Yes my friends, you read the title correctly! My kitchen cabinets are DONE! Had you given up on me? For those of  you stopping by for the first time, I started my kitchen cabinet transformation almost three months ago. Meaning that this reveal has been a long time coming. I knew it would take awhile, but did not anticipate it taking this long. I thought a couple of weeks at the most. Whew, this was a project {to say the least}. As usual, I knew exactly what I wanted the finished project to look like, but it took a lot of reading, inquiring, trials and errors to get these cabinets the way they are now. I won't lie, it was not an easy task. We hit a lot of speed bumps along the way where things didn't work as we had planned which caused major delays. Are you ready to see? Of course you are!

If there was anything in the house that made me doubt our purchase, it was the kitchen. Oh the kitchen! There was nothing, not one thing, that I liked about this room. It was everything I wasn'tlooking for during our search for a new home. But it was a great layout and it had some serious potential. Luckily I have an eye for these things and I was able to overlook the ugliness not so great features of this kitchen in order to see the kitchen I could create. 

So here it is, our kitchen circa 2007 

{these pics were taken during inspection using a point and shoot, so excuse the crappiness}

Dislikes {umm, everything}:

• White linoleum counter tops. I had once lived in an apartment with white linoleum counters and swore it would never happen again. Well here we were, once again, with white linoleum. Hubby promised granite - at some point- so I agreed to live with it {for 10 months too long}.
• White appliances. I used to really like white appliances, but now I preferred stainless steel.
• The big, bright fluorescent light on the ceiling. I am not a fan of overhead lights, particularly bright fluorescent ones. 
• The Pergo laminate flooring. It sounded hollow when we walked on it and it looked as if someone had ice skated over it. In other words, scratched.
• I didn't love the raised bar. I really wanted an island or large counter workspace. Plus I felt it closed off the room.
• The color. Now there's nothing wrong with yellow, I just didn't want it in my kitchen. But paint doesn't scare me. It's an easy fix.
• Two-tone, gold and white cabinet hardware and gold switch plates so shiny you could use them as mirrors. 

Need I say more?

The kitchen remodel was complete in November 2007 {about one year after moving into the house}. Let me remind you that all the renovations were done by hubby and me, with the exception of the counter tops. It was not something either of us had done before, we learned along the way. Here's what we did:

• Granite! Good-bye white linoleum, hello Santa Cecilia granite!
• Stainless appliances, all of them.
• A new, hanging light fixture. This took some work because there was a large rectangular hole in the ceiling when "Big Fluorescent" was removed. Hubby had to patch it up with drywall and spackle and then of course, paint. 
• Beautiful Teak hardwoods.
• Did you notice the raised bar is gone? Best idea EVER! After removing the laminate in prep for the granite installation {tip: HUGE money saver if you remove it yourself}, hubby cut off the drywall used for the raised bar so that it was level with the counter top. The granite covered all imperfections and is supported {because the solid slab is so heavy} with a corbel* and four stair posts.
• On the walls: we painted the walls with Ralph Lauren Tangier Island & Country Cork, added beadboard under the bar and travertine tile backsplash under the cabinets.
• We changed the cabinet hardware to nickel-finish knobs and pulls.
• Nickel finish switch plates replaced the gold.

Everything was just how I wanted it, except the cabinets. Unfortunately, new kitchen cabinets were not an option for us. If I wanted a different look, I would have to do it myself. I kept putting this project off because I knew that it would be a lot of work. Finally, on March 9, 2011, I started my kitchen cabinet transformation. {No Turning Back Now}. The dishes came out, the doors came off and I was ready to go! 

I plan on doing an in-depth tutorial on painting the cabinets, including supplies, what to do andnot to do, etc. But for now, in a nutshell, here are the steps for re-finishing the cabinets:

{you can also look at my previous posts for more details: cleaning, sanding and priming; painting and beginning construction of box; more box construction; mistakes and painting doors; antique glazing}

• Remove cabinet hardware and doors. Clean all surfaces to remove grease and grime. 
• Sand surfaces well to rough up the finish.
• Prime. 
• Lightly sand to smooth any brush strokes or drips.

• Paint 2-3 coats, allowing to dry 24 hours and lightly sanding in between coats.
• Apply and wipe off glaze to give an "antique look."

On top of the painting, we also added glass doors, replaced the cabinet above the microwave with a decorative box and shelf that touched the ceiling and changed the cabinet hardware. 

Like I said, this was by no means an easy project. Many times throughout the process I cursed and hollered that I would NEVER do this again. But now that I'm finished, I would do again in a heartbeat! I absolutely love how my new cabinets look! The room looks so much bigger and brighter and the and the accents like the antiquing, new hardware, glass doors and box with molding really bring the whole look together.

Now it's perfect! Except that I would still like a Viking range, double ovens and a Sub Zero fridgesomeday! I am so happy with all of the changes we have made. And what I love best is that we did it all ourselves and saved TONS of money!

This project was contributed by one of our fabulous readers! We love to share your projects with this great blogging community. So, if you have projects from kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, overhauled and repurposed furniture, spray paint updates you name it please send it in! Thanks for reading Remodelaholic!

After all the demolition, electric work, patching, rerouting of duct work and tiling we were ready to drop in the cabinets. The cabinets were made by a family friend and my husband (hey, I was pregnant) worked along side him to install. When they were done we had this:

The dishwasher obviously still needed to be installed along with the kitchen faucet, etc. We were able to get a new full sized dishwasher with the new layout. We bought a new sink, faucet and over-the-range microwave. Unfortunately we couldn't afford a new fridge, but we left enough space for the one of our dreams for that "someday" when it does fit in the budget. We also stuck with the same stove. It doesn't have the look I want, but it works and we aren't made of money. After all that we welcomed a baby boy and a kitchen almost simultaneously. Voila!

The shelving/wine rack houses venting that needed to be rerouted upstairs and that was our creative way of working around the venting. Life gives you lemons you make lemonade...or shelves and a wine rack, but whatever. The peninsula dividing the kitchen from the dining room (remember that use to be a wall) has a china cabinet with lighting on the dining room side, open shelving on the end and a spot for two stools on the kitchen side. The counter tops are HD laminate and were made by our cabinet maker. Some day I would love to get a stone counter top and tile the back splash....someday.

Well the previous owners and their kitchen table squished up in this corner. Now that we had the open concept with the kitchen stools at the peninsula and the dining room table just on the other side of the peninsula a table didn't feel necessary. We added seating and storage with a built in window seat. It is the perfect place to hang out with the cook and the storage is great for large items you don't use often. The cushion was made by my mother-in-law (home economics teacher). It is foam, wrapped in batting with a cover sewn on.

I knew I had to go with glass fronts for my dish storage. With a Fiestaware collection like that how could I not? FYI...my mother-in-law is the collector, I just reap the benefits. The cabinets are illuminated inside and the glass shelving allows the light to flow through the cabinet. We also put in under cabinet lighting. Check out the pull out garbage (best kept out of sight).

Nothing too exciting over here. The butcher block was salvaged from the kitchen and refinished. The above the range microwave is new. Not the kind of thing you want to install twice, which is why we replaced it with the remodel.

The best part of the whole remodel is how it opened our house up. This is a view from the kitchen. This makes keeping taps on the kids and socializing/hosting so much easier. Phase one is definitely where we made most of our changes in our kitchen. But as we lived with it we made some tweaks to make it work better, or just because we needed to change things up or felt like having some fun!