Ikea Gray Cabinets

We spent the night in Cincinnati last weekend and had a blast at CoCo Key Water Resort.  Six straight hours of swimming and water slides! We were exhausted, but had a great time!  I love the Lazy River!  Wyatt could not get enough of the "dark" slides.  The funny thing is we have something really similar here in Indianapolis, but this is a great excuse to pop into Ikea and Jungle Jim's.  

While browsing Ikea we admired this show kitchen that was under construction during our trip back in March.  Gray paint, raised panels... slightly familiar!  I am happy to see gray cabinets as an option in big box stores. 

Laminate Floor B&A

Next month will mark one year that we began our laminate journey and I have shown some of the before and afters,  but I thought that I would put them all in one post.  I am still in love with the floors! We have had a few nicks and scratches, but nothing a Crayola won't fix! 

Adding laminate has been my favorite change since we moved here and I believe has made the most impact.  I get lots of compliments on the floor and most people are surprised to hear that it is laminate and that it is from Sam's Club.  I hope that when we have some cash to spare that we can add this to the upstairs hallway.  

.99 Charging Station

What can .99 at Goodwill get you?  A nifty tray turned charging station.  My son bought an iPod for his birthday and that meant that my ceramic egg crate was not big enough for three devices.  I knew that this tray was meant to be!  The tray was a little scratched and worn.  I originally thought that I was going to paint it, but then I fell in love with its' warm tone.

A realtor gave me a great tip for worn wood- Scott's Liquid Gold!  Rub and buff a little of this stuff on wood and you will realize why it is called liquid gold.

What a beauty!

Here she is in her new home.  Matt is going to swap out that outlet with a USB wall plate in the future. Until then we will fight over the outlet.

I love this little tray! It looks great and it's functional. Win-Win!

Feature, Feature

We have been featured on two blogs recently and I thought I would share and pass on the love.  I love checking in at Better After.  This was one of the first makeover blogs I had ever read and I still love reading!

Thank you Lindsey for the blog love!

Source: betterafter.net via Stephanie on Pinterest

Jena featured the family room paint color on her blog, Involving Color.  This is a great site to search paint colors in real life. This is my new go to site for color ideas!

Source: involvingcolor.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

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.