The BIG Kitchen Reveal

I have been waiting for just the right lighting to take these pictures and today was the day! I am so happy to show off our kitchen! I posted a sneak peek at the end of November, but now is time for the full monty. I am in love with my new kitchen! 

The Kitchen

The Island

Side by Side 

Comparisons

My thoughts on this renovation... 

It was really rough at times and I really wanted to give up, but my positive husband kept things going and this kitchen was not possible without all his hard work and ingenuity. From research to execution Matt was on top of things.  One thing that he insisted on was adding red oak (quarter inch) end panels to the cabinets, which resulted in a custom finish.    And his biggest contribution?  Pushing me to go gray and I am so happy that he did!

One hiccup that we encountered was the fact that Sherwin Williams could not tint satin enamel in Dovetail (gray).  They could only do semi gloss and we wanted satin.  We ended up purchasing Valspar paint in a satin finish.  Did you know that Lowe's is able to tint their paint with  Sherwin William's formulas?  The color is spot on and we have been pleased with the performance.  It has been two months since we finished the cabinets and they have held up beautifully.  One piece of advise that I do have is after you install the bumpers rub the spots on the box with a bar of soap to prevent sticking.  We failed to do this and some paint stuck to the bumpers.  

If you are interested in our journey from honey oak to gray I suggest checking out our kitchen posts.  There are a few things that I have not talked about previously.  We were able to score a new refrigerator for under $500 because it was slightly damaged on the side that is not visible and was a discontinued model.   It is platinum rather than stainless, which means less fingerprints!  We also installed a new ceiling light, the Alang from Ikea (thank you LaNae for grabbing it on your last Ikea run).  

Source List:

Cabinet Paint Color

Island Paint Color

Wall Color

Ceiling Fixture

Pendant Light

Faucet

Cabinet Pulls

Runner

Tutorial used for Island

Sneak Peek of Our Painted Cabinets

We have been BUSY! Matt has spent every free moment outside of his full time job working on this for the past 3 weeks. We are not completely done with this project. The island still needs to be painted and little things here and there like base trim and corner pieces, but I would say that we are 90% done!  The island is going to get trimmed out and painted SW Eider White.  We ended up going with SW Dovetail for the cabinets and I am so pleased with the color.  It has totally changed the feel of the kitchen.  I am happy that we went with a lighter color against our dark floors.

Kitchen Cabinets are Primed!

This past weekend Matt and I primed the cabinets.  I only did the boxes, which in my opionion was a lot easier than his job of spraying the doors.  Prior to spraying Matt constructed a spray booth in our garage.  This one is sturdy and was constructed using cull lumber and was less than $10.  The "booth" he made this summer was just plastic taped to the garage ceiling and that jerry-rigged contraption was not going to work this time.   Here is the new booth and my sweet hubby made sure that I could still park in the garage.

Our drying station is the dining room and living room. Using styrofoam cups were cheaper than purchasing painter's triangles.  Two inexpensive garment racks were purchased as drying racks and our extensive collection of coloring books are being used as weights.  

We are making progress and I am so happy! I feel a little more motivated than I did a week ago.  My posts are scaring my friend Mary out of painting her cabinets, but I am hoping that the end result will be worth it.

DIY Grump

Yesterday I had the lovely task of emptying all the kitchen cabinets and then the tedious task of sanding, vacuuming, and cleaning the cabinet boxes.  It took hours people.  I was the BIGGEST grump ever last night and went to bed at nine.  I knew that this was not going to be easy and I am trying to stay sane.  Right now all of the contents are in three different areas.  Making dinner last night was a joy.  Actually, my poor kids ate sandwiches and cereal in front of the television.  They should have a series called, "The Real Kids of DIY".  On a positive note, I am going to put all of my stuff back in clean cabinets and I am one step closer to my painted kitchen cabinets! Which, I changed the color... again.  More on that later, for now enjoy my stuff strewn all over the house.

Step One to Painted Kitchen Cabinets

We have officially started the painted kitchen cabinet project.  The doors and hardware have been removed and if I am a good girl and do my homework tonight the cabinets will get a good TSP scrubbing.  

We labeled the inside of each cabinet with a piece of painters tape and labeled baggies to hold the hardware.  Each hinge is labeled with a number just in case there is a slight difference when we reinstall.  Each cabinet is labeled with the assigned cabinet number too.  We are not taking any chances.  The number will not get painted over because we are using these hooks during the painting step.

I appreciated the comments last week concerning the paint color.  I decided to meet in the middle and go with a gray that is darker than the lighter gray, but lighter than the black.  You can see a sample on the end of the cabinets in the second picture.  The color is Valspar's Mark Twain Gray Brick which is darker than the computer representation.

Painting Jitters

While we are waiting for our special order grout for the fireplace I decided to pick up a paint sample for the kitchen cabinets.  Originally we wanted java cabinets, but with the installation of the darker laminate we are are afraid that things are getting too dark.  I thought that a charcoal gray would be a good compromise and picked up Benjamin Moore's Kendall Charcoal sample and did this:

     

It is darker in person and really dark at night.  Will a charcoal gray kitchen be too dark?   I started playing with PS using this tutorial and came up with these "samples".  The problem is our flooring is dark not light and I failed to notice that when I made these. 

  

What do you think?

Laundry Room Reveal

It is about time!!! I have talked about laundry room plans here and here and I am so happy to be finished and I am going to guess that Matt is happier!  I went back and forth on color for awhile, but settled on the same color that we used in the powder room, Glass Tile.  

Remember my curb side find?  This holds all the bulk cleaning supplies.

The plastic tubs are form Target and hold beach towels and swimsuits, library books, and one empty one for hauling stuff to and from the van.  These have come in handy and were only $5.99 a piece.

The letter bin came from TJ Maxx and the little chalkboards from Groopdealz. 

All the doors got a fresh coat of trim paint with our new paint sprayer.  With school out and warm weather the hooks are bare, but will be nice and full in the fall.

I have had this rug since July and it gets the most wear and tear as this is our main entrance.  Matt recently added paint footprints, but with the a little scrubbing I was able to get it looking brand new.  I took the rug out to my driveway sprayed it down with the hose and a little diluted spray-n-wash.  I used my carpet cleaner to do all the scrubbing and suck up all the water.  I made sure the rug was completely dry before laying it back on the floor.  

Kitchen Bling

As you know I have been planning a kitchen facelift for awhile.  There has been a lot of discussing and dreaming, but we have not moved any closer to our goal.  Well, we are a smidge closer. This is my new faucet.

 This is what I had before.  

It amazes me how one little thing will change the space.

Source: decoratingcents.blogspot.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

Originally I was going to go with bar pulls for the drawers and mushroom knobs for the cabinets and then I saw Andrea's gorgeous kitchen and decided that longer bar pulls were what I needed and she was awesome and shared her source for the pulls.

Interknobs

I was able to purchase 27 pulls for $48 and that included shipping.  These are the same pulls found at the big orange box for a fraction of the price.  I am so excited to have pulls!

I was also planning on adding bead board to the island and painting it white, but I have decided to keep the island the same color and add board and batten.  

This is my inspiration island:

Source: realsouthernliving.blogspot.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

We have purchased the paint sprayer so now I need to choose the paint color.  We want to go a little more black than the bathroom cabinet color.  Any suggestions?