Kitchen Make-Over!

Were any of you left in suspense after this post? Well fret no more, the kitchen is complete and I have a whole series of photos to document the process...

This was our kitchen 'before'. Brown and boring (no offense to my Brown family roots). It was fine and functional, but just not "us".


Filling the no-longer-needed nob holes on the doors, sanding, and washing the cupboards...


The disaster zone...


Priming...


Painting in progress (2 coats total)...




The next part probably requires a little explanation. I wanted the cupboards to have a "worn-in" look. I read and read and read up on how to do this, and finally decided to go for the technique recommended as being the "best and easiest" on 2 different blogs. This technique called for painting stain on the paint, and then wiping it off. I did just that, and it looked great. The problem came 20 hours later when the stain still wasn't dry!! At this point I wrote the bloggers and asked if they had this issue, and they claim they didn't. Hmmmf. Off I went to Home Depot to see if they could help me, and I was greeted with, "You can't put stain on paint!, (duh!)"..."it will never dry". Me: "yes, I have found this to be true, thank you for rubbing it in my face." "What can I do?" They weren't a whole lot of help, so I called my sister and she pointed me in the direction of Valspar glaze which is sold at Lowe's. So off I went to Lowe's to get the glaze (and mineral spirits to remove the stain from the cupboards). Fortunately, the mineral spirits removed the stain without taking off the paint, so I didn't have to do another coat of paint. I applied the glaze in the same wipe-on-wipe-off manner as I did the stain, only this time it dried in a matter of a couple of hours, and I was quite pleased with the result.

Distressing take 1:




I think I was feeling a little too stressed to take photos of "distressing take 2", so instead I will now post the end results!

Let's once again glance at the 'before':


And 'after':
(with a flash)...I had hoped to do this during better daylight, but forgot...


And 'after' without a flash:


I love it...and it feels like our house is becoming more and more "us".