The Kitchen Beginnings

The kitchen is coming along!!!  And I was quickly reminded why I'm not a "projects person".  BUT, before we get into that, let's see some more before photos of this "rigged" kitchen.

During my path of destruction around the kitchen, I also noticed this horrible molding hanging from the cabinets.  Other than holding grime and dirt, it's only function was to hide the under-cabinet florescent lighting.  Which was "rigged" and cords were hanging all over the place.

(Why this didn't bother me before now is completely shocking to me.  The only reason I could come up with would be that when we moved in I was pregnant (with Lillian) and wasn't all there, and then I guess I just got used to looking at it for so long I didn't "see" it anymore!)

Here's another place the previous owners "rigged" some lighting.  There are cords hanging all over the place above the cabinets.

So, we will be figuring out new lighting.  Especially under the cabinets.  But it'll probably be florescent lighting that doesn't need to be hidden.  Decorative florescent lighting, if you will.

Here's the opposite wall of the kitchen.  Hello, welcome to my world.  Yes, I put random things on top of shelves...we're pressed for room in this house!  I keep telling you I'm not perfect! Ha!

Saturday morning, I started taking cabinets off the hinges and hardware.  Yes, all 20 doors and 7 drawer faces.  (But we only have 5 drawers...I told you we're pressed for space!

And this was how we ate breakfast! Watching Robert staple gun things back into place.  Oh, and I threw away that toaster up top.  I guess if I haven't used it in a year or so, I probably won't use it again!  And maybe I can score a new toaster oven out of this project.  We'll see!

THEN, Robert gets all crazy and construction-man-like and decides to rip out the windows in the kitchen too.  Yeah..that wasn't in my plan, but something that NEEDED to be done!

The kitchen is in shambles at this point.  Not fun when there are 4 kids running around pulling things out of shelves!  AHHHH!!  Add in chainsaws and it's TOTAL CHAOS!

The cabinet doors and the bases were primed only on Saturday.  BUT, 2 windows were completely torn out! :-)


So day one was, how shall I say it, not the most "marriage building" of days, but we got through it unscathed.  :-)



Onto the fun part...PAINTING.  {insert Robert groaning}

We actually DID work as a team on this.  And he didn't get onto me too much about my bad painting.

Landon was actually a HUGE help.  And wanted to help.  Loved seeing his servant's heart come out!

Rhodes was toddling around while we were getting set up and he started walking with a leaf on his (left) foot.

So he tried to wave it off.  It was kinda funny.  He stood up and went back down twice to try and get it off.  Then just pulled it off with his hands.

The boys played around in the rain for a minute.  The girls stayed dry in the playroom watching "Annie". 

See....I'm painting!  I'm really doing it!

Unfortunately, it was SUPER humid so the cabinets took long to dry.  Hopefully, only one more day with a cabinet-less kitchen!

On the paint choice.  Let's just say I was more told, than got to choose.  Robert likes this Dove White Semi Gloss paint.  It's like $60 a gallon ($60.19 to be exact), and it's super tough.

Since we were basically working with "fake wood" that was underneath the vinyl-ish stuff, there weren't too many options for paint.  We just needed it all to STICK to the cabinets.  Plus, we can't go too crazy in the kitchen because in this area and home prices, etc....we would not get our money back if we went all out.  So we are doing the best we can with the house and area we are in.

But it doesn't rule out glazes.  We may or may not experiment with them.  We need to see how these cabinets turn out first.  There's absolutely no doubt that a fresh coat of paint in the kitchen will do it wonders.

We are also wanting to change out the lighting to two matching lights.  But one step at a time.  So far we've spent less than $100 (primer was $25), but we have so much leftovers, it's sure to go to more projects.  For Robert's business at least!

Another good thing about ripping off all the cabinets in your kitchen is it kinda forces you to go through your cabinets.  You see things and realize they're expired, or you have a better place for it which then frees up more space for other things!

Now, am I going to color code and line up cups smallest to biggest in my cabinets?

NO.  I'm not that OCD.  But it was nice to throw some stuff out!

Hopefully I can post "afters" soon!!!