The Kitchen Redo - Before

At the beginning of the summer my husband decided that he wanted to tackle the kitchen. While I would love to have a fresh, remodeled kitchen, I wasn't too excited about it.

Major remodeling with two littles running around? No thank you!

He also wanted to finally pull up the carpet in the master bedroom and put down laminate floor like the rest of this house. I was totally on board with this project because I hate carpet! That project took most of the summer (have I mentioned I have two littles running around?) and so we are just now getting to the kitchen.

I'm still not too keen on the idea (again - LOVE the idea of a fresh, clean, remodeled kitchen...just not too excited about the actual DOING part...), but I figure the quicker we get started, the sooner it'll get done.

I decided, to help my attitude along in this journey, I would blog about it. I hope this will help me to see the progress we have made when I get frustrated with all that is left to do. I also hope that one day my girls can look back and see what once was and how hard their mommy and daddy (mainly daddy...) worked to give them a beautiful kitchen to learn how to cook.

The Before Pictures

What better way to kick off this journey than with some before pictures. Let me warn you that my counters are not perfectly clean - they are not normally perfectly clean. There is always something on top of them that has a home elsewhere, but this is normal for me (have I mentioned I have two littles running around? ;-) ).

Maybe - just maybe - in the after pictures I will capture a picture or two where my counters are cleaned off and everything is where it should be. :-)

Maybe...

Laundry Room

I didn't get this picture before he took the doors off to sand them down.

The kitchen looking from the laundry room

 

Both halves of my kitchen

Unfortunately, at least at this point, it is not in the budget to get new appliances so the white appliances will be staying. Hopefully, in a year or two, we may be able to look at purchasing stainless steal, but for now, white it is!

The laundry room cabinet doors all sanded down

We realized, after these were sanded down, that there was just a clear coat on top of the wood. I actually thought there was some kind of stain, but the "color" I was seeing was actually the effect the sun had on the clear coat that was on there.

The Tools of the Trade

The sander

This puppy will be getting a workout during the next few months. Hope it lasts!

     By the way - that is not an actual puppy.

     I thought I'd clear that up... :-)

The sanding area

The staining area

Decisions - Decisions

One of the issues we ran into as we began this project was what to do with the cabinets. My first reaction was paint because that is pretty much all I have ever known. My parents love to remodel and I have never lived in a house with them where the house was not totally different when we left than when we arrived. They have always painted cabinets and never stained them. Not that they don't like stain and such, but it is a very difficult and long process. Painting, while isn't easy or fun, is easier than staining.

However, my husband had very different ideas. He wanted stain. He prefers the look of stained cabinets to painted cabinets. At first I was okay with the idea even though I knew it just added to the amount of work we (and by "we", I mean "him") would have to do (have I mentioned that I have two littles running around?), but seeing as how I didn't mind the look of stained cabinets, I was game.

Then we started trying to decide on the color of stain we would use. First of all, I never knew there were so many stain colors out there! There are the normal wood stains, but now you can even get colored stains! Maybe it has always been that way, but, again, never paid much attention to stains.

I had decided that, to coordinate with our floor (this is not changing seeing as how we have already done the floor twice) I wanted a lighter color. On the other hand all we were finding in the lighter colors were, according to the pictures, what appeared to be yellow. I didn't want yellow. We quickly realized that pictures don't always tell a true story (so remember - the actual color of these stains...pictures don't tell a true story). We found one we liked called "Pecan" and when he stained the sample, I loved it...until we put it up next to the floor. :-(

The "Pecan" sample

So, back to the drawing board!

I love gray. I have a this weird obsession with the color gray. I like to wear T-shirts that are gray when I'm not feeling good or feeling a little down. For some reason, to me, gray gives me comfort. If you've ever been to my house you also know the walls, with the exception of the master bedroom and bath, are gray. I like gray.

     TMI?

We thought a gray stain might look really good as well, but quickly decided one was too light and the other was too blue looking.

Aaron suggested trying a walnut stain and so we got two colors in the walnut - one called "Special" and the other "Dark". At first, because of the pictures, I wasn't too excited about walnut because it seemed really dark, but after we stained our samples, it wasn't what I expected at all!

All five possible stain colors

The final three

The winner!

We finally settled on "Special Walnut" because it was light enough that it contrasted the floor, but not so dark that it was going to blend in with the countertops - which, at this point, I'm looking at darker colors.

     Do you agree with our choice?

The moral to this story, kids - stain sample wood before making your decisions because nothing looks like the picture!

Stay tuned for future installments of the kitchen renovation!

 

Next - where did all this stuff come from?