My Kitchen

When we first saw what is now our house, the kitchen was not inspiring. In fact it alone was enough to make me strongly dislike this house. But there are a lot of other things this house has going for it so I tried hard to imagine what it could be. It would be a low budget, high elbow grease project I knew. That’s just how we tend to roll whether we really “have to” or not. We really enjoy the learning experiences of all our do-it-yourself undertakings. We like to keep things simple and functional and not get caught up in spending a lot of money for new and shiny, when we can redo the old and make it work. This has enabled us, over the years to get out of debt, stay out of debt, and be able to live a life of generous giving which is important to us. This, though was a very overwhelming project and a difficult one. In the hours and hours of painting I can feel the patience produced in me. I have learned to love the steady work of painting layer after layer methodically until it is solid. Oh the deep thoughts I’ve thunk during those hours, days, and weeks of stroking brushes. Now that I’ve written the ones worthy to be in black and white for all to see, here’s my little but pretty and very functional kitchen.

The garden window has always been my favorite feature and makes a great place to start my seedlings. They are in egg cartons in the picture above.

Now I’m no designer, but I wanted the kitchen to be light because it’s so small. Our pantry, beyond the glass door helps make up much of the size factor. All the light was a little blinding in the morning though, so I went with a light gray for the walls. It’s a Behr color called Pewter Vase. The white cabinets are also a Behr latex enamal paint and the color’s name is “Polar Bear.” We stayed with white appliances. I will get some more colorful decorations in there and there are a few more projects to finish up but I couldn’t resist sharing pictures now because this has been an incredibly long project. It took over 2 months after moving into this house before I was able to put dishes and food and all of that good stuff into the kitchen. Thank goodness for the large pantry but I love baking and cooking so it is so amazing to have a functional space again!

So, first I showed you the after. Now I show you the bad that was so that you may be thoroughly impressed. Opening our kitchen cabinets used to be cringe worthy. Who am I kidding? Touching, even looking at, our kitchen was cringe worthy. I had put down my foot that no dish or food of ours would go into a cabinet or drawer in our kitchen until they were completely redone. I’m no princess, but I am a person that appreciates cleanliness and you have to draw the line somewhere.

   

It was dark and dingy. I have nothing against wood cabinets, but these were beyond repair. The surfaces were ruined, stained deeply, gouged, water damaged on some areas, and caked with years of accumulated dust hardened in layers into years of accumulated grease and food. After scrubbing the cabinets with soap and water we chiseled off the grime. We pried up laminate shelf coverings, and shelf paper, and threw away all removable shelves. We scrubbed and scraped again all the stained and water damaged areas. I must say that by this time I just really could not believe that this would end nicely.

But it did end nicely. It took a whole lot of wood filler, more sanding than I liked, many many layers of primer, a few more layers of more expensive primer on all the stained areas, and a few layers of enamel paint. It was white and clean. Paint is miraculous, people. Amazing. I must leave you with a more pleasant picture.