Kitchen Remodel

Now, don't get me wrong ~ there was nothing really wrong with our kitchen, except that my precious son had drawn on the cabinets with a black sharpie and no amount of elbow grease, Magic Eraser, NOTHING would get it off. We decided that if we ever sold our house, we would have to do something about that. Now, I took some friends advice and decided to go ahead and do it so we could enjoy it -- whether we sold our house in a year (NOT gonna happen) or 20 -- I want to enjoy it. When we moved from Nashville, we had to hurry and replace carpet, etc and I even said then: WHY did we wait to do this!

Before:  Builder maple 42" cabinets - pretty standard with dark sage green wall paint.  Yes, I took this picture in a panic.  The painter called and said she was coming in the morning and in a panic, I remembered to grab a couple pictures of the kitchen 'before'.  This is something I'm working on -- trying to get out of C.H.A.O.S (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) because my house is always a WRECK!

Another Before:

Apparently this was when Shawn came over and brought dinner, because that is her crockpot! HA!

After:

HUGE DIFFERENCE, HUH!?!  We absolutely love it.  We have a guy that redid the floors and he came over to look at our guest bathroom (yes, leaky shower -- needs to be fixed) and he kept telling me how nice our new granite was -- NOPE -- because of the paint on the cabinets and the backsplash, our granite looks an entirely different color!  We painted it the Home Depot version of SW Svelte Sage -- it is a dead on match (I had a gift card to HD - so I didn't want to spend any more money than I had to -- my goal was to do this on a BUDGET).

View from the other side ~ everything that is on top of the cabinets is either brought from somewhere else in our house or was purchased at Hobby Lobby (I spent LESS than $75 on that trip and also bought Christmas presents at that trip).  There is an apothecary jar that I filled with pumpkins and gourds and a tin sign that says "Count Your Blessings" ~ I plan on changing that out with the season (the tin signs are ALWAYS at Hobby Lobby or JoAnn's)

I absolutely can not take credit for the decorating.  Shawn pretty much did all of that.  You should see HER house - I told her she needs to do a 'internet open house' so y'all can see how beautiful her house is decorated - esp right now for fall.  

SO here's the breakdown:

Repaint/glaze kitchen cabinets and island:  $900 (I received quotes of $1800+)

Kitchen backsplash tile: $225 (and I still have $65 of material to RETURN!)

Labor: FREE

BEAUTIFUL KITCHEN: PRICELESS

So that is pretty much it ~ I hope you enjoyed it and it was worth the wait! It sure was for us!  Next up:  Kids Bathroom and Guest bathroom retile ~ cracking tiles in the guest bathroom and leaking shower in the kids bathroom (GOOD TIMES!!!) This has ALWAYS been on the list for redo since we bought this house - so I'm glad it's finally getting done.  It's SO nice having friends in the construction business that want to help you out!