Dreaming of a white kitchen

When we first viewed our house with our Realtor in January, there were many things we loved and also many things we said we'd like to change (which, in my opinion, is the perfect combo!). Some needed immediate attention, like the canary yellow walls, and some fell into the wouldn't that be cool eventually category. The kitchen, however, wasn't on either of those lists--I liked it just the way it was. In fact, I'd say it was the main selling point (or at least top 3).

So, naturally, we got to work on it right away! 

You know how when you move into a house, especially one that was previously owned by someone with drastically different taste than you, it feels like you are living in someone else's space. I think that was one reason we decided to paint our kitchen cabinets--we needed to do something with impact. We had the yellow walls professionally painted, along with several other rooms, but since we didn't do that ourselves, it didn't satisfy. It felt like we lived in someone else's house, only they let us pick the paint color this time. 

We did get our painter to give us an estimate to paint our cabinets (just for giggles) and he came back at $1700! He said the price was mostly for labor, and after doing it ourselves, we totally understand. This is a huge undertaking, but we did it ourselves for around $250 AND we added things that our painter wouldn't have done, like beadboard wallpaper insets!

I should mention, we weren't living in our house at the time which made this project MUCH easier to tackle.

Here is our kitchen before (picture from the listing):

Not too bad, right? With the table gone, it's really open and we have a ton of counter space! But think of what it could be with a little paint and about 1.5 million hours of labor?!? Let's do it.

First, we took off all the doors and pulled out all the drawers. I cleaned them all really well before we got started.

Instead of sanding to rough up the surfaces (that would have taken forever!!), the folks at our home improvement store recommended Valspar Bonding Primer. We brushed it on to make sure we got in all the creases. It creates a rough, matte surface, as you would expect if you roughed it up with sandpaper.

It was so nice to use our empty living room at a makeshift workshop!

Now for the fun part...paintable beadboard wallpaper insets (great tips in this tutorial)! These are so incredibly easy to do and they add so much to plain kitchen cabinets. I bought two rolls from Lowes (at $20 each, they're a steal!), and only needed a couple feet from the second roll (each roll is 56 square feet).

Cut your pieces before you wet the adhesive. I had 4-5 different sizes of insets, so I'd cut one and use it as a template for the rest of the cabinets of that size. It's not too important to cut them exactly the right size because you'll caulk around the edges which will cover any spots where you are a little short/long/wonky.
I'm a measure once, cut once type of girl. Aint nobody got time for measuring 8000 cabinet insets twice.

The back already has adhesive, so I used a spray bottle with tap water to get the back pretty wet. Since the cabinets are horizontal, it's okay for it to have a little excess water on it. If you don't have enough water it won't activate the adhesive as well and you'll get some areas around the edges that don't want to stick. You can fold the edges into the center and let the adhesive set up for a few minutes.

That step also falls into the category of things I stopped doing once I realized how long this project was going to take :)
You don't have to worry about the back being too wet because your cabinets will be horizontal until it's dry.
When you put the insets in, you should be able to slide them around and get them into place. If you are having a hard time sliding, you may not have used enough water, or you may have let them set up too long. Just re-wet and stick again. Easy!

You can see that my edges are a little wobbly--but that's totally ok. I was told that you should put the most effort into the last 5% of a project, because that's all anyone will see, and that totally applies here. No need to be a perfectionist at this point.
I put all the insets in and let them dry overnight.

Once they were dry, I went around the edges of the wallpaper with a bead of caulk. Then, I wet my finger and ran it along the edge that I just calked, smoothing out the caulk and pushing it into the edge of the cut-in, so there was no seam between the beadboard and the wood.

Make sure to use paintable caulk!

We also put beadboard on the back of the open areas and where we have glass cabinets.

While I worked on the cabinet doors, the hubs primed the cabinets.

After the caulk dried, we started on our first coat of paint. We used Valspar Ultra Kitchen and Bath because it's made to be really durable and cleans really well. We did two coats over the whole cabinet door--even the beadboard. We used a brush on the insets because they are fairly narrow, and we used a foam roller on the edges. We also used the roller where we could on the cabinets. The paint is fairly thick, so I think the coverage and texture is really similar with a brush or a foam roller.

I ordered these bin cup drawer handle pulls (X19) and these matching knobs for the cabinets (X24). Including shipping, I replaced my entire kitchen hardware for under $75! I was a little nervous ordering sight unseen, but it worked out. They are high quality, heavy, and didn't have any dings or imperfections! I also sold our old hardware on Craigslist for $30, so I netted $45 for new kitchen hardware!
We put the doors back on and put our new hardware on and called it a day! I'm so pleased with the outcome. The hardware and beadboard make all the difference!

It took us several weeks to complete, but we were not living in the house and were mostly working on the weekends.
We love how open and airy it feels now!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Have you used textured, paintable wallpaper? Do you love it? I think it's the perfect touch for our otherwise boring cabinet doors!

A Stroll Thru Life -- Inspire Me Tuesday

diy pinboard & morning

Do you guys watch the Nate Show? Apparently this is the last season (maybe it's over already??), but it was awesome. He has so many fun ideas and keeps his stuff budget friendly.

Last year, my roommate left me a few...pictures...frames... I'm not really sure how to classify them. They started like this, black frame, glass with a floral applique in the middle.

A couple weeks ago, I saw a Nate show about organization and he suggested a "mail station" or just a cute board in your kitchen where you can hang anything...bills, pictures, wedding invites, etc. So I used one of the frames (it's actually 3 stacked on top of each other) to make mine. I spray painted the outside bright blue and cut out cardboard rectangles that fit in each frame. I covered the cardboard in linen and hot glued them into the frames.

I love projects that I can finish in one night and this is definitely one. It's a great place to put cute cards and randoms. I found this card at a shop in Old Town Spring:

Anyway, today's photo challenge is morning. Rhett and I were really bad this morning and had Shipley's for breakfast. It was oh soo good :)

How do you like the new background?? It's found here.

buffet top

Is it already Friday?? This week has been a blast and I'm going to post about ALL of it, but not right now. 

For now I'll head back to last weekend and tell you about the buffet top restoration project my mom and I worked on. Here is what it looked like before we got started.

Nothing special. We painted it Cream Puff by Behr and it took 2+ coats to get it covered! The wood is Pine, so it's super porous. Just the off white color made it look a lot better. 

Meanwhile, my dad cut a piece of bead board to fit in the back. It was actually a little too thick so he had to chip some off the back to make it fit. Thanks, Dad! 

We painted the bead board Firebrick by Behr and slipped it into the back to make sure it fit. Turns out it was such a perfect fit that we couldn't get it back out, so we put the glaze on the whole thing together. 

I used a coarse grit sandpaper to rub around the edges and make it look worn.

We had a lot of fun working on it and I think it looks a million times better. 

Maybe it looks a little weird on the bottom now? I'll let you know what comes of it.

The Round Top Antiques Fair is coming up at the end of March/beginning of April and I'm thinking we will come home with some fabulous finds to populate our buffet top.

:)

Linked to Miss Mustard Seed Furniture Party

and

faux fireplace revamp

A few weeks ago Rhett's mom gave me permission to test my painting skills on a faux fireplace they used to have in their game room upstairs [but was currently in their storage unit]. I snatched it up, read some furniture painting tutorials on Miss Mustard Seed, and got to work! Here is the starting point: relatively untouched wood.

All I had to do was sand it down a little and wipe it off before I added my first coat: Almond Cream by Behr. I only did one coat because I knew I wanted to do some pretty heavy glazing at the end.

Then I taped off the inset rectangles and painted them Violet Shadow by Behr. After those were dry, I rubbed on a small amount of flat Cathedral Gray for texture. 

After that dried, I covered the entire thing [piece by piece] in Valspar glaze in Leather Chair. You really have to put it on thick in the beginning and then wipe off however much you want. It's a back and forth type thing [put a lot on, wipe too much off, put more on, etc.] until you get it how you want it. The glaze is really forgiving. You can wipe almost all of it off if you don't like the way it's turning out. 

After the glazing was dry, I sanded around the edges and nooks in the wood.

Then all that was left was to put it up in my room and decorate the top! Here is the final product [my apologies for the blah lighting]. 

The old window hung above it is from the church where my parents were married. How cool is that?? 

Overall this was a really fun project to do and I will enjoy it for a long time. That being said, it did not come without its frustrations and touch ups. That's not stopping me from paining more furniture finds! LOOK OUT! Not even your own furniture is safe.

burlap table runner

A couple weeks ago I found this super cute table runner idea from mason bay. It's definitely worth a quick trip to JoAnn's. I grabbed 2.5 yards of the lightest burlap they had and a small bottle of teal-ish acrylic paint--all for under $8! yes or yes?? I used clear duct tape to do the outside stripes first:

The tutorial says to work in sections, which is pretty unavoidable unless you are painting on a larger surface than the actual table you are making the runner for. I used painters tape to outline the inner stripe because I only wanted half an inch between the stripes and I thought if I taped over an already painted part with duct tape it would pull off parts of the paint [which may actually look cool and vintage??]. I didn't chance it. The painters tape worked just fine, and the final product turned out great! 

Pardon the quality of the pics. They are from my iPhone. I have currently misplaced my camera battery. 
I unraveled the edges a little and may put a dot of glue at the corners to prevent too much raveling [in her tutorial, she sews along the edges, but that seemed like too much work/I don't have a sewing machine]. I did, however spend some QT on my mom's sewing machine this weekend and will post soon!