My Kitchen Upgrade

 

I will warn you first thing that the title “My kitchen upgrade” may be a bit deceiving. I should perhaps have labeled this post “My Complete Kitchen Makeover” or “A Total Kitchen Renovation” but it sounded less dramatic to go with simply calling this a kitchen upgrade, since it hasn’t been too long ago that I gave our kitchen somewhat of a makeover. :o

This idea or “wild Hair” as I like to call it started as I was painting a kitchen for someone else recently (you can read about that here.)  and began to feel that urge to make my kitchen more to my liking. It’s not that I didn’t like the way it looked, but let’s face it, no matter how much we like something, there’s always room for a little change. For a while now, a few things had been bothering me about our kitchen…

And this space that we call the pantry area got a lot of red ink!

So… after many hours of painting, a little electrical work, (which hubby & dad did) and a major cabinet door & drawer makeover I was finished and felt a giant step closer to having my dream kitchen!

Lately I had been falling in love with a vintagey shade of green that I soon discovered doesn’t exist in any paint company’s color palettes. :(  I remembered seeing a pendant light in Ikea a year ago that was the exact shade of green I wanted to accent the kitchen with. So, I spent at least an hour with a helpful young lady (you get the best service there) at the local Ormes hardware, trying to match the color of a picture we printed out of the light from Ikea..

 

It’s kinda hard to tell from the picture, the exact shade of green, but believe me, it’s elusive! We did manage to mix some paint that turned out perfect! We also mixed some that didn’t turn out. :(  I am sure they were ready to see this high maintenance customer walk out the door at Ormes! We ended up using the formula for Baby Grass, a Do It Best color and adding a few more drops of black. I will name the color Miracle Green since it turned out so great. :)

I imagined how good this green would look amongst the bead board in our kitchen and also a touch of wood and possibly marble.

 

The following pictures show the evolution of our kitchen starting about eight years ago to present.

The red era…

A few weeks ago…

As you can see, the cabinets look a little dirty compared to the white surrounding them. When we moved here I painted them using a sanding method. They were originally a stained oak, which had turned orange over the years. I gave them a coat of dark brown paint and then tan over that. I then sanded the edges, bringing the brown out a little. After that, I gave them a coat of oil-based varnish. ( this was before I knew of the water based Polycrylic )

So now I bought white cabinet paint for around $50 a gallon. I only needed one gallon. I applied the paint using a sprayer on the doors and drawers and a brush & roller on the frame.

I decided to skip the polycrylic but I can see that I should have used it. The paint chips a little around the handles and knobs. A few years ago I had painted my sister’s kitchen without using polycrylic and hers are holding out great. The only difference would be that I painted directly on stained oak for hers and mine were painted already, making them smoother. I will probably end up applying the polycrylic eventually. You can read about my sister’s kitchen makeover here.

Just for fun I will add an old grainy picture from this kitchen when I was a girl at home. The picture was taken when the kitchen was brand new. This was a long time ago and mom had since improved the look of it, but I well remember the excitement of getting a new home and how we thought it was the most beautiful place on earth. :)

 

Now the “after”…

 

The “before” of the pantry area…

The “after”…

I’m not quite finished decorating this area. I want to collect more clear, green jars for the top of the cupboard and I need something to put in the egg basket. Eventually I will be adding more things, but for now this will do. I was impressed to find a plate that was that perfect green color at the local Goodwill for 50 cents.

As you can see, the doors and drawers went from a flat panel to raised panel bead board. To see how I did this (which is really very simple!) click here.

I also moved the microwave into the cupboard. I cut off some of the door and painted the part where the microwave is and… no more crowded countertop!

 

You may have noticed that the countertops that used to be black, turned into marble?! (I wish) :) To see how I did that, click here. It was just easier to write a separate post on some of this than to squeeze it all in one.

The lights above the island that took the place of the ladder rack were a brushed silver that I painted with the miracle green paint. We purchased the lights at Lowes.

Any other green accents were painted with miracle green. Even the antique kitchen scale changed color..

 

 

If you look closely you can see a fly on the right light. :(  Since it’s been cooler outside they show up in the house and they have a serious hang up with these lights for some reason.

 

I snagged the old window at a local antique mall for $10.00. I printed out some old medicinal botanical images to display.

 

Some more kitchen touches…

 

I am loving my mostly white kitchen! I love the fact that going with whites will enable me to change color accents whenever I please!

I hope you enjoyed this kitchen “tour” and don’t forget to follow my blog for continued updates!

-Mary