Budget kitchen redo

Finally!!! The kitchen is done! And I still have my arm!! I seriously thought it might fall off after all of that painting. But alas... it lives to paint another day. Oh I guarantee you it will paint another day!

See my pretty tulips my sweet husband gave to me. Let me tell ya, that is one patient man! He doesn't get a lot of warning before I dive into these projects of mine. He pretty much comes home from work one day with cabinet doors spread out everywhere. But he not only supports me, he helps me out where I need it. Truthfully I don't ask him to do a whole lot, only the things I am pretty sure I would make worse.

I actually totally burned him out on painting when we moved into our second apartment as a married couple. I made him stay up ALL night the night before we moved in painting every. single. room! Yeah, I pretty much deserve what I get!:) But that is another story for another day.... I think you all may have come to see a kitchen!

Lets take one more look at the before pictures shall we?

People... that is a lot of oak! A lot of golden oak! It wasn't bad, but it wasn't me and I didn't love it. And I like to love my spaces... especially the one that I spend 97% of my day in!

Well, I love it now!

It is like a different kitchen all together! And guess what... it didn't break the bank! I spent less than $300 on the makeover itself! A little more if you add in new accessories.

So you want to know what all was done? Well like I said before... it was a WHOLE STINKING LOT of painting! If you remember I painted my stove to look like stainless steel. (Come back next week for some updated information about that.) 

Then I painted the island with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I loved it. The wax you use to seal it was a little different. But the paint went on great and had fantastic coverage! 

The color is Paloma Gray. I knew I wanted the island to be a different color than the cabinets. Since I am on a bit of a gray kick right now I knew it would be something in that family.

Then I very slightly distressed it. I wanted the island to have a little more of a furniture feel to it. I have plans to add some other details to it some time to give it more of that feel.

And of course I painted the rest of the cabinets. They are just right off the shelf white from Sherwin Williams pro classic line. I worked with oil paint for the first time on this project and truthfully if I had it to do over again I am not sure I would have used the oil base. I love Sherwin Williams paint and their latex pro classic  is a GREAT paint. And with the trouble I had cleaning up the oil, I think the slightly less hard finish is worth it for the simplicity of latex. But that is just me.

I used the same white to paint my table. It was heirloom white, but next to the bright white cabinets it just looked dirty. And then because everything else was changing I repainted these chairs. I still liked them but the seats were crazy dirty after being used by messy little boys and the chairs just didn't quite feel right with the new colors. 

So I spray painted them and my stools with Rustoleum Dark Gray. Then I found a tablecloth on clearance at Target for $12 and it had all of the colors I wanted to pull together! I used it to reupholster the chairs.

Whats that??? You see new countertops?? Yeah those are painted too!

Painted!! I love the finished product! I will have a more detailed post about this next week as well. I used leftover latex paint from my sideboard and some acrylic craft paints in different colors and sealed it all off with Envirotex light! All of it cost about $100!

This little area is where our router has to sit. The phone jack is weirdly place on the wall next to the kitchen instead of along that back wall by the plug in. So completely hiding the cords is impossible, but this little box certainly makes it less noticeable.

See it all tucked in there with the phone cord coming out one side and the electric cord coming out the other.  The box was a $5 Steinmart find, but it was UGLY. So I painted it and decoupaged some scrapbook paper on it to prettify it.

Over here a little canister I found at TJ Maxx for $8 holds my utensils. Then I couldn't resist the Pot holder and little gray cow both from Target!

Over here is our little organization corner. I saw this idea on another blog. I can't remember which one now. But it is jut a hanging file basket with folders for things like my son's school information and my menus... blah blah blah. Then you clip a calendar on the front. I love it!

Well that concludes my kitchen tour. If you have questions or want more information about any one thing let me know and I will give some more details. 

How about one more before and after??

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