Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Kitchen Transition - Before and After

Our kitchen has transitioned over the past 6 years.  It has always been a perfectly good kitchen, but I had visions of what my "dream kitchen" would look like.  Adding a bit of farmhouse charm to a new-ish construction house is quite an undertaking, but not impossible if you have a vision and are related to the man(woman) power!

Since moving in in 2005 we have added hardwood flooring, granite countertops and tile surround (fall/winter 2007), new appliances in 2010, painted twice, leading up to Labor Day 2011 weekend when the biggest, least expensive yet most labor intensive, most dramatic change to the house to-date, project started.

Island color: Sherwin Williams "Lemon Verbena"
All other cabinetry: Sherwin Williams "Summer White"
Hardware: Martha Stewart "soft iron"
Ceiling: White beadboard
Labor: Lovestrands Inc.



Details:  Highly recommend using all oil-based primers and paints (and you'll need a good gallon of mineral spirits for the cleanup).  During this project I had pink eye twice.  Apparently no longer a childhood ailment.  Thankfully we perservered with lots of elbow grease coming in from across the yard.  In all, this project took two weeks to complete.  The island took one weekend, we spent the next week removing the rest of the doors/hardware, and a week of sanding/priming/painting.  Oil-based paints take a good day to dry and you'll need a couple coats on each side of the doors. 



Kitchen before.
  


Kitchen during - sanded and ready for priming.
  


Father and son sanding team.
  

Almost there - bases painted and ready for doors!
 

Kitchen after.
 
Some day we will figure out our DSLR camera and take the kind of pictures you see on websites, but one thing at a time.


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