Our Kitchen Makeover on a Budget (Phase 1)

I am finally going to show you the progress we have made in our kitchen! First, I want to give a few disclaimers. These aren't true "after shots" because we aren't finished with the kitchen but are taking a break from it for now to work on about forty million other projects in the house so I thought I would show you where we are at now. I am currently mid-way through making over the dining room, entry way, hall closet and powder room so about half of our downstairs is kind of a construction zone but at least now the kitchen, family room and den are tidy and presentable. And when you walk upstairs everything is still all a mess except for Lillie and Lola's room (which I shared last week). I have finally made some decisions on the direction I want to go in the other bedrooms so I am excited to start working on them once we get the rest of the downstairs a little more under control.

The second we walked into the kitchen when we first saw this house we loved the open concept and the wood floors. Other than that I don't think there was anything else we were crazy about. I would have loved to remodel the entire kitchen but seeing how we plan on completely gutting the master bath and expanding it and there are quite a few other projects to do in every single room we knew we it would be smarter financially to work with what we had in the kitchen and stick with just brightening it up and updating it vs. completely overhauling it. If we completely overhauled it that would mean no master bathroom updating and the master bath needed it a lot more than the kitchen so it was an easy decision. For this first phase we pretty much just replaced the appliances and hired a wonderful contractor to help us with building the hood. He also fixed up the ceiling and beam area where we pulled down the upper cabinets that divided the room. Other than that it was pretty much just painting and replacing the lighting and hardware!

For phase two we plan on replacing the counters and adding a new farmhouse style sink and new faucet and adding a nice backsplash. When we add the new counters we are going to have them overhang on the peninsula so we can add some counter height stools which I am really looking forward to. I cannot wait to do all that but seeing how we are going to be working on other parts of the house before we come back to the kitchen and finish it up it might be a little while before we make those changes.  I'll keep you all posted.

For now though here is what we've done:

Pretty much as soon as we got unpacked we got to work on this space seeing how we spend by far the most time in here. My parents came to visit the night after we moved in and my mom got right to work scrubbing down the kitchen cabinets. I cannot even begin to tell you how disgusting they were. I actually have a photo of one of the cabinets that I will show you later in the week when I do a full post breaking down how we painted the cabinets (this is the third set of kitchen cabinets along with plenty of bathroom cabinets that I've done and I've done them all a bit differently and learned several things the hard way - haha).  Anyway, I owe her big time for that because it was a pretty awful job. Then we all went to a family wedding in NC and my parent's returned home and Jon's mom and dad arrived and we got right to work painting. Jon's mom helped me with all of the priming and painting in here. With both of us working all day (between the two of us we were practically working around the clock - she would get started each day around 8 and I was finished up around 4am) it took us about 4 days. The actual cabinets themselves were not that time consuming - they probably only took about ten hours or so I would guess. It was all the trimwork, the fireplace, and windows and doors that took so long. I can't imagine having done it without her. I've done all the rest of the painting and projects in the house on my own (I've been working on the entry way which includes several doors and of course the dreaded staircase for over a week now!) and have to say it was so much more enjoyable painting with a partner! I am so grateful for both my mom and mother-in-law's help in transforming this kitchen. And my dad and father-in-law too - although neither of them did any painting they helped with a million other things!

I replaced the black frames on the chevron art for thicker white ones however they hung lower so they look a little off in these photos. The night after I took all the photos I moved the nail a little higher up on the chevron so the white frames are now nicely centered. I still need to distress the white a little so it isn't so bright but I'll get to that eventually. I also plan on painting the table a darker gray color but I'm also thinking about building a smaller farmhouse table for in here so I'm holding off until I decide for sure what I am going to do.

I ended up moving the mirror back above the mantel and I think that's where it's going to stay.

I originally was really torn on whether or not I was going to paint my cabinets white or light gray. Once we decided to hold off a little on replacing the counters (and therefore the backsplash) it helped me to pull the trigger with the light gray that way we could leave the walls white and it would help hide the dated backsplash - especially the weird part above the stove. If we painted the cabinets white I would paint the walls gray and with the backsplash in it's current state it would have made it really stand out which would not have been so attractive. Once the microwave was removed it left a weird patch where there was old wallpaper and some bumped out wood pieces so the easiest thing to do to hide all that for now was to just put a piece of beadboard and just wedge it in there to hide all the mess that's behind it. The big piece of Corian behind the stove with the beadboard above it drives me crazy right now but at least because it's all white it's not too noticeable until you are up close. I can't wait until we get ride of all that and do counters that have no backsplash and do subway tile. At that point I may switch and paint the cabinets and trim white but until then I am happy with how this all looks and how the white walls make the strangeness behind the stove not stand out too much. I am not sure why but in this picture below the white Corian below the beadboard looks similar to the gray on the cabinets. In reality it's more of a white - or was once upon a time many years ago, white. =)

I love this little basket from my sweet friend, Allie. It has wheatgrass in it now but also has been fun to use for holding our silverware.

Here is the old piece of furniture that I turned into an island cart I showed you in this post. However as I mentioned last week we've been playing musical furniture quite a bit over here.

And right now we have this more industrial looking one in here. Although, as I mentioned in the other post neither of them are really quite what I am looking for. =)

Just this afternoon I hung our first chalkboard canvas in that bare space between the end of the cabinets and french doors. I can't wait to get that photographed.

And yes, I still need to paint and wax the legs on our sectional and add a rug and recover the ottoman... and on and on it goes...haha!

And one last before and after shot:

Source List (for both kitchen and family room):

Cabinet and Trim Color: London Fog in Semi-Gloss
Wall Color: was here but very similar to Simply White in Matte
All appliances are Whirlpool and were purchased at Lowe's during their Memorial Day Sale
Flush Mount Drum Shade Fixture - Lowe's
Pendants - These were a hand-me-down from my mom and they worked perfectly in here
*update - my mom gave me the info on them: Kichler Seaside Nautical Dome Light from Bellacor.com

Wood Topped Island Cart - read more about it here
Metal Island Cart - IKEA
Circular Mirror - Antique Farmhouse (from my sister, Dana)
Oversized Clock - Joss and Main
Metal Baskets - Joss and Main
Dishes - Emma Collection from Pottery Barn
Chocolate Cups and Saucers - L. A. Burdick (from my sister, Jamie)
Canisters - Williams-Sonoma
Three-Tiered Wire Basket - Collections at Laurel and Grove in Peterborough, NH
Table - Pier 1 years ago and has since been painted
Dining Chairs - IKEA
Sectional - IKEA
Chevron Picture Frames - tutorial here
Pillows - Home Goods, Target, Dear Lillie
Tufted Chairs - TJMaxx
Script Chairs - TJMaxx
Painted Cabinet - makeover here
TV Console - Antique shop in Camden, SC
Frames above chairs - tutorial here
You Are My Sunshine Print - Dear Lillie
Runner - Home Decorator's Collection
Sconces - RH Baby and Child
Mirror - Restoration Hardware
Rocking Horse - RH Baby and Child
Floating Shelves - Target
Urns on Fireplace - Seasons in Williamsburg (years ago on clearance)

I'll be back again soon as we have several new products to share and also I will be doing a full post dedicated to painting cabinets.

I hope you all are having a fabulous week!