Kitchen Makeover Complete! (Mostly)

Here is where we start. Cute, yes... oh but I have visions. Visions that do not include heavy slate top coffee tables or homeless trashcans. 

As soon as papers were signed on our once rental but now owned home, I bought paint. White paint for that black hole of an island and got to work.

Two coats of primer and my kitchen was already feeling much brighter. 

Three coats of Benjamin Moore's Cotton Whisper and a soft gray on the stools and for very little money, I got a very lovely kitchen island that magically makes the whole room feel bigger...and cleaner. For the cupboards, we borrowed my parents paint sprayer. Now, here is where I will depart all wisdom gained in how not to paint and renovate a kitchen.

Lesson Learned # 1.  Do not,if at all possible, take on a kitchen painting project in the dead of winter. Heating the garage, makeshift painting stations and ventilation issues...no. Just wait until spring.

Lesson Learned #2. Hanging your drawers and cupboards does make spraying them easier, but do not leave them hanging for long or gravity will ruin them...drips galore.

This is what a black cupboard painted white, ruined by drips and sanded down looks like. At this point in the project I was tempted to convince myself that this was a look I could embrace, but I failed.  Back to the heated garage we ( meaning Jon) went, and with a finer tip on the sprayer and doing one side at a time so we could lay the cupboards flat, we tried again to save our hideous cupboards.

Ta-freaking-DA! I mean, my gosh it looks so much better! New hardware made such a big difference as did a light colored ornamental granite. Getting the granite was a month long horror story of incompetent installers who crack slabs on install day, and then bring a mismatched replacement a week later. I'll skip detailing the stress of those long weeks of tub dish washing and frustrating phone calls. Because, the end result is what I hoped it would be. Also two of their mistakes ended up working in my favor. 

One mistake being that they cut out a single basin sink instead of the free and much smaller double basin. I'd say that was a 200$ upgrade for nothing. I love that I can soak a crock pot or stack cookie sheets or bath a small child it that glorious sink. Thank you Home Depot contractors for getting my sink oh so wrong. Also, all the plumbing is now centered under the sink meaning I now can fit a trash can under it! Bigger sink and more room..who knew?

The first slab we ordered cracked due to poor measurements taken so it wouldn't fit, the second slab was pulled from a scrap pile and didn't match the island...at all. So they ripped all the counters out and left. Jon headed to the granite yard and found a slab that was just what we wanted but thicker, which would usually be quite a bit more expensive than what we originally paid. But due to their repeated mistakes they agreed to the thicker slab and a free edge upgrade. The edge made such a big difference, it feels so custom and beautiful!  

Lesson Learned #3 The Home Depot contractors were horrible. Truly horrible to work with. Which is why I'm glad I had Home Depot to report all of these issues to. I had someone on my side trying to make things right. So even though the process was much more stressful than expected, I would use Home Depot again, just for the back up. 

Next project for the kitchen upgrade was a back splash. We debated for a while on what kind of tile to go with and eventually settled on classic white subway tiles. Jon did such an exceptional job. 

Lesson Learned # 4. Invest in a tile cutter and learn to do your own back splash. It's so nice to not have to hire someone who doesn't care about your home in the same way. It saved us money and the stress of working with outside help. We could try something out and if we didn't like it, tear it out with no protests from installers. And now we have a new skill under our belt ( and by our belt...I mean Jon...again.)

Jon also built a new window sill. It used to be gray laminate. We tried painting it with a brush and it looked terrible. So we ripped it out, sanded it down and spray painted it. It worked perfectly. It looks so bright and smooth. It's a real feature now. 

Lesson Learned #5. Spray paint is your friend. We spray painted a second had coffee table as well and it looks brand new. 

I found an adorable vintage scale on etsy and an angel vine adds some color and life to the window sill that used to be an over looked part of the kitchen. 

We still have some grout work and edging to do around the window, but it's mostly done and I didn't want to wait to share it any longer. 

I'm so happy with how bright and clean it looks!

It's been several months now and I still get a little thrill when I look at the fruits of our labor. It no longer feels like a rental home, it feels like our home infused with our style and our hard work. If only having a darling kitchen inspired a love of cooking somehow, but who would want to make a cooking mess in such a nice clean kitchen. Not me.