Kitchen update!

When last we left our (kitchen) hero she was looking a little like this:

(actually, if you remember, those crazy brackets on each corner of each cabinet had already been ripped off)

And if you recall, here's a before of the den before we painted the fireplace and the upper portion of the walls:

More kitchen (with the crazy lantern light fixture):

View from the kitchen after the upper portion of the walls and the fireplace were painted:

Here's the breakdown of what we did to the kitchen:

• Painted the cabinets a light grey




• Spray painted the existing cabinet hardware (to save us roughly $250)




• Removed the doors from the cabinets on the wall above the sink and installed painted slabs of wood for new open shelving




• Painted the countertops with Rustoleum's countertop paint (and nearly died from fume inhalation in the process...but that's a different story in itself)




• DIY'ed the pendant lights over the peninsula with a recessed light kit




• Hired a handyman (Bruce is the man) to remove the crazy lantern light fixture and to replace the existing overhead light with a drum semi-flush fixture




• Bruce also replaced the fan with a plain (and non-70s looking) white fan




• Painted the bottom paneling in the den white




• Added a rug from ikea and a few other trinkets

The whole thing cost under $500 (as opposed to the average $25,000 it costs for a new kitchen) and took us two weekends and work in between on the weeknights.

Aaaaand.....here are the afters!


Still left to do:

• Paint the walls in the kitchen area to match the color on the upper level of the den area




• Paint the trim around the window in the den (and the whole house for that matter--a painter is coming to give us a bid this week)




• Get pieces of glass and install them over the brackets on the fireplace for 3 mantles




• Spray paint the bookshelves either black or white




• Get a coffee table and a media cabinet




• Get a rug for the kitchen area




• I'm sure other stuff we'll think of along the way :)

And of course eventually (maybe a year and a half or two) we'll plow the whole thing over and get a brand spanking new kitchen. But, for now, we love it and are just enjoying our hard work for awhile.

Sorry for the sparse description above, but its late and we have work tomorrow! We hope everyone had a very happy holiday!