Kitchen: Before and After

Our Kitchen "Before":

I thought about painting the cabinets, but several people pointed out that, even though they are knotty pine, they are solid wood. So we left the cabinets unpainted.

Don't you just love the little houses on the border in the backsplash?? If you love that, then you would have been even more thrilled when I tried to rip it down and determined that under it was PAINTED WALLPAPER, then MORE WALLPAPER under that. Brett and I first tried just scoring it and spraying on wallpaper remover gel, but eventually we moved to a garmet steamer and had much more success.
There is Brett coming into the kitchen during the home inspection. The floor was also a keeper--ceramic tile in a neutral color. I have always wanted a black and white tiled kitchen floor, but alas, it was not meant to be!
Here you can see the wonderful bay window/breakfast nook area with the icky burgandy gingham window treatments. I just have something against the country-crafty home decor scheme after growing up in West-by-God VA. Really like the stained glass ceiling light fixture though. Sorry about the blurry photo! I would also like to draw your attention to the dark woodwork trim which, in my opinion, made the whole room look dated and dreary.

Our Light-Filled "After":

My friends Laura and Louise came down to help me paint while Brett was having a golf weekend with his guy friends. We extended the green, Benjamin Moore's "Harbour Town" on the long wall from the family room, and painted the rest of the kitchen walls yellow, Benjamin Moore's "Mellow Yellow."


Later Brett and I painted the windows, trim, and moulding BRIGHT SHINY white, with the help of his parents who were visiting from Vermont. (Benjamin Moore's "Frostine." I also made over the window treatments by taking down (with relish!) the valances and re-doing the roman blinds. (Expect a post on that DIY later on!)

You can see in this one how we painted the crown moulding white up to the cabinet soffits, and then left the moulding touching the cabinets the same color. We thought it made the cabinets look more like they extended to the ceiling, and also gave the room some lift and brightness where it needed it. It took 3 coats on the trim--that was pretty time intensive. We also gave the doors a fresh paint since the "white" that was on them looked more yellow and dirty with the pretty new trim next to it.


Our fabulous, wallpaper free backsplash!!!

We decided to leave the cabinets as-is for now...even if they are knotty pine! I wish I knew what to do about the drawer pulls--what kinds of looks do you think we should get? Nickel? Ceramic? Glass? Metallic? Colored? The kitchen is definitely not modern, but I think the paint and new blinds made a big difference in brightening up the space, especially the white trim. We also could use an update with appliances and countertop. I have been playing with the idea of concrete countertops--does anyone have any thoughts on that? How do you like the makeover?? Too matchy-matchy? Or just cheery and perfect??Thanks to everyone who helped us get this project done!