Kitchen Refresh Part 7: The Reveal

Have I kept you waiting long enough to see how our kitchen refresh turned out?

I’ve been living with it in a final-for-now state for a little more than 2 weeks.

Remember how it looked before?

I know, I know. Try and contain your jealousy. Not everyone can have sticky, puke green-colored cabinets.

Ready for the after?

Here’s that same corner now.

Much better, right?

I’m so glad this house presented the opportunity to paint the bottom cabinets black because that might not happen again. It’s my favorite part about this little refresh.

The black paint works like magic and almost makes my black appliances disappear!

The other thing I’m so glad I did was spray paint the hinges black on the black cabinets. The hinges on these old cabinets are exposed, but again, the black paint makes them blend in and they aren’t as much of an eyesore like the ones on the upper cabinets.

Unless you are really paying attention, the black paint also camouflages the water damage to the veneer in several places.

The other thing we did was upgrade the faucet.

It was gold before, which I was kind of digging. However, and this is a HUGE however, it had two handles. You cannot use your kitchen 50 million times a day and have to adjust two handles to get the right temperature without constant aggravation.

And let’s face it, dishes are already a constant aggravation. We don’t need to make it worse with a faucet that needs the hot and cold adjusted separately.

On the other side of this wall is the dining area with the built-in bookcases and a fireplace.

That little slatted door on the left is the pantry.

While I still have no love affair with my countertops, they don’t bother me nearly as much as they did when we moved in.

For the backsplash, I purchased 2 of the big 4×8 sheets of wainscoting from Home Depot. It wasn’t in my top 3 choices, but it worked out. I was close to my goal of keeping the backsplash under $50. I spent $60, but have a huge chunk of it leftover for another project. I’m sure I can think of some way to use it! *insert evil crafty cackle

We have 3 seams in the planking. My husband was not happy I purchased the bigger sheets because he had to be very, very careful about the cuts and how they lined up on those 3 seams. However, he did a great job of lining everything up. I knew he could! 🙂 Now, I could have done a better job with the caulking, but a perfectionist I am not. Clearly, it’s where we differ in our personalities!

I’ve used a similar type of backsplash before and it held up just fine to the wear and tear we bestow upon a kitchen. I understand that it’s not for every situation though. I am not an expert, but I do recommend being liberal with your use of caulk so that water can’t seep through where it meets the countertop. All I had on hand when doing this project was clear caulk, but white would have been better. I’ve also had luck in the past with using a clear sealant over the paint for water splash zones.

My family jokes with me that I have nothing on my kitchen counters. While that is a slight exaggeration, I am in the minimalist camp when it comes to stuff on counters.

The pictures show what I have out every day on my counters. I did put out a new kitchen towel for these pictures from Blue Eyed Birdie. I haven’t had the heart to use it yet because it’s too pretty to get tomato sauce on!

The only small appliance we use everyday is the toaster and it goes back in the cupboard when I’m finished with it. My husband uses an Aeropress for his coffee on most mornings, so that goes back in the cupboard too.

Our cookie jar is holding packets of sweetener, not cookies. So sad.

To give you some perspective, this is the view my kids have when sitting on their barstools. Our back door is just to the right of the fridge. It is less than ideal because we don’t have a coat closet. However, I’ve figured out a way to work around that and I’ll show you my system at some point. This coat rack helps immensely.

Also, that dog door kills me. I mean no offense to pet owners. It just pains me that that old, beautiful door was cut into.

So, that’s the kitchen!

Is it my dream? No. Is it much better than it was? OH YEAH. I can actually touch the cabinets now and they aren’t sticky from grease and uncured paint. It’s the small things that make me happy.

I bought a quart of black paint, wainscoting, sandpaper, spray paint and 10 new drawer pulls for this project. I think I’m in this for around $125 and a lot of time. It helped that I found a gallon of white paint in our basement. I would have used a slightly different shade of white if I had purchased it, but I’m not going to knock free paint. So, all in all, not bad, right? I am pretty darn happy with how it turned out and that I got the chance to experiment just a little with this kitchen.

If you want to catch up on the Kitchen Refresh, here you go:
Kitchen Refresh Part 1
Kitchen Refresh Part 2
Kitchen Refresh Part 3
Kitchen Refresh Part 4
Kitchen Refresh Part 5
Kitchen Refresh Part 6