Kitchen Face Lift

The first time I saw my kitchen, my realtor and I had a hearty laugh. The selling agent had advertised the space as a "gourmet kitchen". I think many people have a picture that comes to mind when they hear the words "gourmet kitchen" and "cook's dream". What I pictured looked a little something like this:

(Image via one of my favorite stores, www.lowes.com)

What we saw instead was this:

I knew immediately that this would be one room that would quickly receive attention, even though I wouldn't be able to afford a total upgrade immediately. However, as I stated in my previous DIY blog post, waiting for and working for what I want are two things I can do like a boss!

Everything in the kitchen needed to be touched: cabinets, counter tops, back splash, floors. Where does a DIY-er even begin?? I usually choose my next project very scientifically: whatever bothers my eyes the most gets taken care of next. After I scraped the popcorn off my ceiling and took off five (yes, FIVE!) layers of stained and torn wallpaper off the living room walls, the kitchen was the next project. I figured the biggest bang for my buck would refacing the cupboards.

My first job was to degloss the cupboards with some TSP. I planned to paint them to give the kitchen an updated color scheme. After that was finished, I hauled all of the doors and drawers to the basement to do something about that awful routed border. My plan was to use 1/4" thick boards that were about 2.5" wide, which would cover almost all of the border (with the exception of the curved parts in the corners.) For the drawers, I needed to use 1.5" wide boards. I used a chop saw, a nail gun, an air compressor, and some wood glue. It surprisingly only took a few hours to finish putting the trim around all of the doors and drawers.

I did need to fill in the curved parts of the border with wood filler to erase that offending line. After priming and painting, I rehung the drawers and voila! I had almost new cupboards in just a weekend. I very much wanted to paint them a rich navy; however, I was concerned that it would make the room extremely dark. Instead, I went with a smokey blue color. When this coat of paint needs to be redone, I think I will do the navy cupboards for a change. In keeping with the time period and character of my house, I chose glass knobs and oil rubbed bronze cup pulls. All of the doors in the house have glass knobs, so I really wanted to continue that in the kitchen as well.

This was actually a super fun project (except for rehanging the doors...I hated that part!) It was my first time using a chop saw and nail gun. I had borrowed a friend's saw, and after completing this project, bought one of my own. Hopefully you enjoyed this trip down memory lane with me, and stay tuned for Phase 2 of the kitchen: the flooring! I'm in the process of picking it out as I type; however, if I go with the hand-scraped bamboo floors I am strongly considering instead of the tile as I had originally planned, I may have someone else do them so I know they are done right (and maybe can learn how to do them myself!)

Would you go with hand scraped bamboo or tile? I would love to hear your thoughts! Anything will be better than what is currently there.