The Final Reveal

It has been a long time coming, but the day has finally arrived: My kitchen is DONE. All the cabinets are painted, the dishes and pantry items have all found their respective places... this place is ready for some action!

Let's take a look back at where it all started, shall we?

BEFORE

Boring brown paint, outdated & damaged cabinets, ugly light fixtures and curtains...

Wasted cabinet space, a small fridge nook, and damaged wood floors... have now turned into...

AFTER

A cheerful orange kitchen with character! Bright lights & newly painted cabinets with knobs & pulls!

A large fridge with custom fit pantry cabinet!

Modern curtains, a cute little dining table, and refinished floors!

This was definitely a huge project... even more time consuming than I'd imagined. Refinishing the cabinets was not a difficult task, but it was tedious. I thought I'd never get it done. Wondering how I did it? Check out my tutorial. Refinishing the floors was another task that was easy, but time consuming. Though we did hit a snag along the way.

I figured I should give a few details on some of the items and paint colors we used in case anybody out there is neurotic like me and has to find just the perfect fit for their kitchen. Did you see my paint color fiasco? It took about 15 different paint samples before we finally found the right one. We stumbled upon our orange color at RCWilley's while looking for furniture. It's called "Brasilwood" by Kwal. Every time I walk into this room I smile. The orange makes me very happy. We used the same white shade throughout the entire house for the ceilings, baseboards, and doors. I also used it as the base color for the cabinets. It's Kwal's Ambassador Semi-Gloss Hi-Hide White. I highly recommend keeping it simple and using the same color throughout because it eliminates confusion and mistakes. I also got the glaze for the cabinets at Kwal. I'm not sure what it was called as they mixed it up for me and it didn't have a label. But if this is something you're interested in, just tell the people at the counter what you want to do and they can help you out. I used almost a full quart of glaze for all the cabinets, so it didn't take much.

Because we have both a Lowe's and Home Depot nearby, we found ourselves bouncing between the two places to find things we needed. I pretty sure we went to these places on a daily basis. I believe we got all the drawer pulls and knobs from Lowe's as well as the curtain rod and curtains. We also ordered the custom pantry cabinets from Lowe's. It wasn't exactly cheap, but we decided the extra cabinet space was worth it, and it was a fraction of the cost of replacing all the cabinets. For us it was a realistic and efficient way to work with what we had by paying only for what was really necessary and important.

Speaking of important, we knew we needed to replace all the light fixtures, not only because they were super ugly, but also because there just wasn't enough light. The rail light made the biggest difference because it has four halogen lights which could be positioned where we needed them. We found it at Lowe's. I believe we found the pendant light at Home Depot, and the chandelier light over the table came from Lighting Design. Just a tip... apparently there are different sized Lowe's around. The one closest to our house was a smaller one with not near as big of a lighting section (and other sections were smaller as well). We found a larger store a few miles away in Roy that had much better selection (surprisingly this was a tip the guy at Lighting Design gave us). It was worth the extra drive to be able to find more of what we needed. Including the floor sander.

So there you have it. Our kitchen. As much as I love it, it's actually my second favorite room. Stay tuned for my favorite...