Kitchen Makeover Sneak Peek
The impetus: A dishwasher
There she is. She is so lovely.
For Christmas, Brian and I were the recipients of a supremely generous and coveted gift from both my parents and his parents. A dishwasher. Our house, having been built in 1938, did not feature one of these blessed mainstays of modernity and we just chalked it up as part of the charm of living in an old house. We are not too pansy to get our hands wet. We hosted annual Thanksgiving feasts for 15 people and did dishes for 2 days afterwards. 'Man up!' we said, and man up we did. Until we didn't feel like it anymore.
Well, we've finally stepped into the 21st century and Oh, it's glorious! I positively adore loading the dishes, studying the user's manual, pushing the tiny buttons and watching the glittery lights illuminate. Most of all, I love inspecting the final result after the cycle is finished. Glassware - not a smudge.
I wrote a while back about how much I loathed our kitchen, especially its imaginative color scheme. So, with the installation of our fancy new dishwasher, we decided to roll up our sleeves and give our entire kitchen a much needed makeover. Take a look at these photos and you'll see what I mean.
Gah! Look at those cabinets. I told myself that they were 'retro' and after I saw their similarity to Betty Draper's kitchen on Mad Men, I told myself that they were 'cool'. But one can only delude oneself for so long. Even I saw that they were in horrible shape. And tell me, how is it possible that a house can exist for 70 years without one owner having any familiarity with a cleaning product?
We are not entirely finished with the makeover. We still have a few touch-up projects to complete, so the grand reveal will have to wait a bit. But I wanted to share a few quick photos of what the heck I've been doing for the past 2 weeks, besides neglecting this blog.
The kitchen's single element I adored and insisted on incorporating into the makeover were the super retro red drawer pulls. We sanded and refinished the cabinets and drawers and decided to paint them all white to give it a simple, clean look.
As you may have guessed, we said goodbye to the hideous lavender and lime green color scheme. We repainted all the trim a crisp white and for the walls we chose Behr 'Puddle' from good old Home Depot. We splurged and got the 'Premium Plus Ultra' paint. It supposedly has less fumes and combines primer and paint in one can. Can you believe it only took one coat?
We also gave the interior of all the cabinets and drawers a fresh coat of paint. Have you ever attempted this? It sucks. But the result is well worth it. I took the opportunity to reorganize everything as well. Having everything in its place makes me absolutely giddy.
Hopefully we will have everything complete by the end of this weekend and I can share with you guys the fruits of our labor. It can not come soon enough. Painting 8 hours a day for 2 weeks allows you a lot of time to dream up fantastic new art, crafting and knitting projects. I can't wait to get started on something new!
Looks good Briana :)
Posted by: Mandy | Jan 21, 2010 at 02:04 PM
What wonderful parents and parents in-law you must have.
Posted by: Dad | Jan 27, 2010 at 05:03 PM