Monday, March 21, 2011

Kitchen Makeover

I recently decided to do something about my cabinets. I never liked the color of the wood, it's just not natural to me. Too orangey. But it always seemed like too big of a task, and then I would decide that I didn't mind it that much.

Until now. Last month, I said, "Hubby, I'm going to paint the cabinets this Spring or Summer!" He said, "Okay, cool honey!"

Then I changed my mind. I said, "Hubby, I'm going to paint the cabinets before March is over." He said, "Okay, cool honey!" Mind you, this was halfway through March that I made this statement. A few days later I went out and got primer, paint, paintbrushes, and spray paint for the hinges (more on that in a minute). The day after that, we painted all our cabinets. All in one day. We woke up at 7, and went to town. I'm not sure he knew that he was such an integral part of the painting process, otherwise he wouldn't have been so, "Okay cool honey" about things. But nonetheless, I could not have done it without my Hubby.

And we had our friends and their babies over that same day for dinner at 4pm. Why did we organize ourselves in such a stellar way, you ask? Cause that's how we roll.

And all day, I kept asking, "HONEY, ARE WE GOING TO FINISH IN TIME?"
And he would say, "Yes, absolutely."
And I would say, "Really?! Yay! I love your confidence!!"

Literally this conversation happened like 6 times throughout the day.

And keep in mind...we have a crawler. And of course, the day before we painted was beautiful, and the day we painted was 40 degrees. So we couldn't do it outside. So there were cabinets and paint all over our kitchen floor. Again, I will remind you of the crawler. We worked at warp speed during her nap, I tell ya.

And all day, we would say things like this:
"Would you rather change and bathe the baby, or keep painting?"
"Would you rather feed her lunch, or keep painting?"
"Would you rather do the dishes, or keep painting?"

All day we took turns painting, and in the meantime doing chores and playing with baby and getting the house ready for our guests.

Okay, I'll get to before and after photos! I really really love how it come out.

Here is our kitchen before, complete with a sink full of dirty dishes. Hubby chose to do the dishes while I painted. I hate dishes.


And here is our kitchen now!

I love how bright and clean it looks. We used a gray tinted primer called "Gripper" which adheres to smooth surfaces which mean - NO SANDING! It was great. Saved us a step, and time, which helps when your like us and you plan home improvement projects spontaneously.
Then we did 2 coats of Martha Stewart's "Cement Gray". I tried to look for a prettier sounding color, but I really loved this one best.

And then we spray painted our hinges using "Brushed Nickel" metallic spray paint. Here were our hinges before, they were really old and rusty, as you can see.

And here they are after!

So easy! Well, I wouldn't really know, Hubby kept running outside and spray painting them. But it seemed really easy.

Hubby was screwing the last cabinet in as our guests pulled in the driveway. I'm really not kidding. And in case you are painting cabinets, I will give you a tip. It says that the paint take "45 minutes to dry, 3 hours to re-coat". I panicked. We did not have 3 hours between coats! So I googled a little, and decided that if it was dry to the touch, we were re-coating. And it worked perfectly. So in conclusion, Martha Stewart lied. Not necessary to wait 3 hours if you impatient, or have dinner guests on the way.

As soon as our guests left, we high fived. We were proud of our team work. We home-improved, cooked, cleaned, prepared, dined with friends, and had a happy sleepy baby by the end of one day. There's something about accomplishing something great with your partner in crime. And now we have a pretty new kitchen to remind us of our crazy, fun, painting adventures. Emphasis on crazy.

And there's more upcoming changes, which I am very excited for! Pictures will follow!

2 comments:

  1. WOW!!!!!
    I absolutely love the new look!!!
    You have inspired me!! Whenever we find a house, I might just steal this idea!!!

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