Kitchen Make Over!!

Once Upon A Time a man and woman bought a house...this house was in need of a lot of work, but the man could do anything he needed to in fixing the house.  The woman agreed to the purchase of the home on one stipulation - the kitchen needed a MAJOR overhaul before they moved in.  Well, the work ensued, and they were very close to having a baby, so in turn, the kitchen did not get taken care of.  This is how the story begins, but...not how it ends.

I finally convinced Jonathan to let me paint our cabinets!!!  This was a HUGE deal and he was o.k. with me doing it, but he didn't want to be involved - at. all.  I agreed and went to buy the paint...I was nervous as could be that I would do a bad job, but I was SO determined to get them completed. So here's the over view:

Pre-Make Over:

These Oak Cabinets and the color of them has been driving me CRAZY since we first saw the house.  

See how dark the room is.

Day One:  (Wednesday) Taped up all around the cabinets an also took off all the doors - I did not take everything out of my cabinets because I didn't have anywhere to put it and I also had no interest in painting inside all the cabinets.  I also took all the cabinet doors outside and sanded them down, then sanded down the frame of the cabinets.  After sanding, I cleaned with TSP cleaner, which was amazing at pulling off the old grease and goop on the cabinets that forms over time.  These cabinets are 14 years old, so I wanted to make sure I had them as clean as possible before beginning.  Since I'm pregnant I couldn't use liquid sander, but I had planned on doing this as a final step but left it out and it turned out fine.

 Day Two:  (Thursday) Once I had everything cleaned and ready to go, I primed my cabinets along with all the doors - I did the doors on the back first so that if they weren't 100% dry and I flipped them, the damage was on the back of the cabinet instead of the front.  My mother in law helped me both Thursday and Friday to prime and paint my first coat - along with entertaining Tucker when needed - she was a life saver!  I painted the door backs, then the cabinets, and then went back and flipped the doors back over to prime all the fronts - I wanted to have everything primed and ready to paint for Friday.

 Day 3: (Friday) I thought we were going to need 3 coats without a doubt, but actually I only did two.  I probably could have done three, but I wasn't really concerned because I plan on antiquing them in a few months. Three coats also added another day of work and with everything everywhere I couldn't take it much longer.

 I took a break on Friday night and we went to dinner - as you can see my kitchen wasn't really easy to work in.  We went to dinner with a couple friend to a restaurant in Somerville that was closing that night.  It was a fun night and I was so happy for a break.

Day 4: (Saturday) I painted the second coat on everything Saturday - I noticed that the wood I had the doors set up on was loosing some of it's dirt onto my nice and clean cabinets, so I added wax paper to the bottoms of them and that took care of it like a charm :).  I was worried that the coat wasn't completely dry on my doors, so I waited to paint the front of the cabinets until late Saturday night and decided to make sure they were completely dry for putting them back up on Sunday.

Coat #2

 Tucker was making crazy faces at me while I was painting and I had to snap a few photos.  Crazy boy.

 Cabinets taking over my bottom room  - Ignore the mess - it was crazy around here.

Day 5: (Sunday) I realized that I had forgotten to spray paint my hinges (I was cheap and didn't want to buy all new hinges, so I figured out how to spray them - I primed the hinges and screws with a metal primer, and then sprayed them with Rustoleum Hammered Black paint. They turned out great - not sure how well they will do over time, but for now they are looking good.
 
Hinges ready to prime and paint

I went ahead and added the drawers Sunday night as well - I was just so ready to have everything back to normal!

 Day 6: (Monday) - FINALLY FINISHED!!  I hung all the hinges back on the doors and then put everything back up - I'm thrilled with the final outcome.  I can't believe how much it brightens the space and it doesn't look anything like it did before.

 I'm sure that one thing sticks out to you in this photo just like it does to me - the cream vent-a-hood.  I plan on either replacing it or painting it black until we can replace it.  This will be completed hopefully by next week. After that I plan to paint my counter tops - yes that's right - I'm getting rid of the green, but I can't afford to replace the counter tops yet, so for $150 or less I can paint them to look like granite - yes please!  I'll come back with updates once I'm finished.

Loving my new kitchen!  This DIY woman is more willing to try more things now that I've conquered this crazy mini-kitchen make over.  This cost me right at $100 and my kitchen looks like a whole new place to me - I'm so happy every time I walk into the room. :)