REMODELING SERIES: THE KITCHEN

The kitchen is one of my favorite rooms of our home. Because I am the primary...or only...chef (if I could call myself that!) of the household, I feel like this is one of my domains. When we first looked at this house last March, we appreciated the layout and size of the kitchen, and yet disdained the farmhouse wallpaper and pink countertops. Sometimes I truly wonder what people are thinking!

Before photo:

Of course, we weren't huge fans of the yellowing appliances either, but this remodel is all about making the best out of what you've got!

First, we tore down that RIDICULOUS wallpaper. It took hours. I mean HOURS. Each peel only took off about a square inch and it was one of the most discouraging parts of the entire remodel. I remember thinking, This was supposed to be a one day thing, and it has turned into a four day job! If this is just supposed to be summer project, when in the world are we going to finish?!?!? If only I could have known how accurate that statement was! I textured over that nasty yellowed wall, and then painted it an enthralling blue, and was amazed at the transformation!

       The next step was to rip up the church-basement-esque carpet and Nick replaced it with porcelain tile from Lowe's. We left the cabinets as they were, and thanked our lucky stars that they had been redone by the previous owner and we didn't have to mess with that expense.

Nick doesn't have an opinion about a lot of things, so when he does, I listen-- and he wanted blue in the kitchen! I think he had seen a spectacular kitchen that was painted blue and wanted to replicate it. I actually really like the country blue that we chose as well, but that made choosing a tile that matched both our cabinets and our walls a little difficult-- UNTIL we stumbled upon some smokey gray blue tile that had some copper streaks through it that matched the cabinets perfectly! Yes, we loaded about 1000 pounds of that tile into my sedan and headed from Hutchinson, KS to Clay Center!

You can't see the copper much in this picture, but we liked how the blue paint brought out the blue in the tile as well.

A couple months later, (maybe like September-ish? See how long we dragged this out?) we painted the countertops black and bronze. That sounds gross right? Hahah it kind of does. It turned out beautifully! People always ask us if it's granite. Sometimes I tell them it is :) I had no idea you could paint laminate, but they make a special paint that you can layer according to your liking and get the granite look that you want!

After replacing the dirty white sink with a pristine black granite one and also replacing the faucet, the kitchen renovation was complete!

Th picture doesn't do it justice, I don't think. Maybe you just have to see it to believe it!
Our most recent project, now that we are moving (we procrastinated!!) was this beautiful leak in the ceiling! In the fall we patched the leak when we re-roofed the whole house and now it's just time to take this nasty sheet rock down and replace it!

YUCK