Kitchen Remodel

A couple posts ago, I told you all about our kitchen overhaul. With plenty of help from friends and family, we had the whole thing ripped out and put back together in about three weeks! We try to do everything as frugally as possible while still doing quality updates, at the best prices (or barters) possible. :) I wanted to show you some before and afters in case you are looking for ideas for your own kitchen.

Initially, we just wanted to replace our laminate flooring. We installed hand-scraped hardwood flooring throughout the rest of the first floor (minus the bathroom) about two years ago, and the transition between our family room and kitchen just hasn't been right since.

Of course, flooring leads to cabinets, cabinets lead to counters, counters lead to walls, and so on. Before you know it, we were committing to a total re-do.

This is the finished product. Here's what we did...

• Flooring - We replaced our old well-worn laminate flooring with 16x16 porcelain tile from Home Depot laid in a diamond pattern. A friend of ours laid it for us. He does awesome work and is currently helping us renovate the upstairs bathroom. I think this really opens up the room, don't you?
• Cabinets - Our builder-grade oak cabinets weren't broken or unusable, so we just updated them with paint and hardware. We used Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations to get the paint work finished. It's a simple three to four step process (four if you use the decorative glaze, which we didn't). I opted for the classic white painted look. It was a lot of agony to decide what color, believe me! I think it was the right decision. You'll also notice that we removed our island. (I know! Who would take out extra storage space?) The fact of it is, we really just had it filled with junk that was easily re-homed elsewhere (like the pantry and in other re-organized cabinets). We were constantly stepping on each others toes to avoid the thing. Our kitchen really isn't big enough to be further cramped with the island, breakfast bar that we never used - not once - plus four kids.
• Counters - This may be my favorite part. We replaced our original counters with concrete counter tops. After looking at a few sample colors, we went with black (charcoal, maybe) counters infused with brilliant flecks of stainless steel. WE LOVE THEM. :) They really pull the whole kitchen together. I mean, my word....look how good they make my coffee and eggs look?
  
  
  
• Doors - Here's another quandary. Our pantry doors and the surrounding frame were originally painted the color of pooh. That's really the best descriptor I have. We had been hoping to change them for the last five and a half years, but never got around to it. I searched the depths of Pinterest to see what we should do. I really didn't want two white doors in the middle of a long kitchen wall; they would just be asking for dirty little handprints every day, I know it. I decided to go with black, and a metallic glaze. Here's a word to the wise. If you ever care to glaze something, read up on glazing first. My nephew (who is an AMAZING painter and helped us SO much with this kitchen) and I glazed them with a metallic finish; after they dried, I added more black back in because they looked a little splotchy. I think they are just right now.
  
  In addition to the color, the dated brass doorknobs had to go. I couldn't find any respectable stainless looking dummy doorknobs, so I painted them with Rustoleum spray paint. Wahoo. They are a little on the sparkly side (because of the color I picked), but I think they work well and it wasn't a bad process. (Thank you for the idea, Pinterest!)

• There's also that over-sized letter I hung on the wall next to the doors (my Anthropologie DIY). I wrote about that a few posts back. I gets lots of compliments; you should totes make one!

• On the other side, in an effort to balance the room out with complementary colors all around, I added black curtains tied off with a little rope for detail (Target - 2 panels for $24.99). Rope was on a spool from the fabric store. Aside from the black curtains, the door still needed some balancing. I made this black and natural burlap wreath with a black bow to tie it all together. 

On a sad note, the motor died on the Kitchen Aid mixer we got for a wedding gift almost 10 years ago. :( THANKFULLY, I was given a brand new sparkly beautiful one for Christmas. How about that? It even matches the kitchen. :) We got a MUCH NEEDED new knife set, too. 

So, I think that's it (for now!). We'll eventually replace the large flourescent light that hangs where our island once was with recessed lighting. But, for now, we have a bathroom to fix-up and we're just happy to have a working kitchen! :)