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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Kitchen Renovation

When Trucker and I married in 2006 I moved into his home. His home had also been his and his ex wife's home. Naturally I wanted to make it "our" home. The first thing I changed out was the kitchen. The kitchen is a galley style kitchen as most older homes are. Our home was built in the 30's and the kitchen is really small. By being so small it is also dark and gloomy as well. Or at least it used to be. Even though there is a double window over the sink and our back door is half windows it was still dark because of the paint that was there.

As you can see in the before pictures it was painted a dark blue on the cabinets. Each corner of the cabinets had a flower design which had been glued on it. The walls were half blue and half white. The upper half above the chair rail is the blue and the bottom is white (fake) ceramic tile. The white tile had been hand painted with picket fences, flowers, butterflies and more. It just wasn't my style at all. Plus it was the ex's. LOL.

This project took me over a week to complete. Trucker and I could not afford new cabinets so I painted them white and then painted all of the hardware black. This made a huge difference in the light of the room. On the walls I painted the same white except for the chair rail and all the trim, along with the doors and they were painted a rust/burgundy color. I bought new curtain valances on sale that are deep burgundy and gold stripped. My theme is country birdhouses and I found a wall paper border of just that. So this I placed above the chair rail all around the kitchen. I already had several bird houses which I displayed in various places around. I then made a trip to my favorite store on earth "Hobby Lobby" and lucked out that all of their bird houses were one half off. So I purchased several more of them. I have them displayed on open shelving, above the cabinets and on many other surfaces.

Since these pictures were taken we have purchased new appliances, but as of yet have not changed out the horrible linoleum flooring. We will be getting to that this summer.

We were both pleased with the way it turned out and what a difference in the brightness of our kitchen once more. I can now see when I cook.

Before:
After:




I apologize for the size of the pictures. At one time or another I must have re sized them on photobucket.

Today I am linking with:

Somewhat Simple - Strut Your Stuff Thursday
Tales from Bloggeritaville - Thrifty Thursday
Life as Lori - Get Your Craft On Thursday
The Shabby Chic Cottage - Transformation Thursday
Remodelaholics Anonymous

I want to thank all of the gracious hosts for each one of you hosting such wonderful memes. To all my readers: please take time to go and visit each one of them and see all the great links everyone has left. It's worth the time to see.

It was brought to my attention last night that I have reached my 100th follower. So in honor of this big event for myself I will be having a giveaway at some point in the near future. So do come back and visit again to see what I am giving away and how to enter.


13 comments:

Lori said...

Cool. Good job with the colors. I like it so much better!!!

Blue Creek Home said...

What a big difference it made with paint and your touch!!!
I love it!

Thanks for your sweet comment and congratulations on your 100th follower!
Rhonda

Lori said...

Yippee!!! You joined my party!!! I'm feeling the love!!! Your kitchen looks great...

Congrats on your 100 follower!!! I love giveaways..

I'll be have on soon. I will have been blogging for one year at the end of January!!!

Thanks again for linking up and joining the party...

Steph @ somewhatsimple said...

good job! thanks for linking!

Unknown said...

What a HUGE difference.....good job! Congratulations on your 100th as well. Thanks for joining Quick Project Thursday....I'll link back to you on my sidebar.....all looks great! xojana

Anonymous said...

Great transformation. I'm sure it was a lot of work and time. But it sure does look like it was worth it. Rosie

Kim @ Starshine Chic said...

Paint can make a huge difference. You just proved that. Great job!!!! And I wish I had Hobby Lobby near me. I'm so jealous!!!

Kathy @ Creative Home Expressions said...

What a difference! White can be such a freshening color, especially in a kitchen. I've been liking white kitchens lately. I guess it's a good thing we have our house on the market otherwise who knows what might happen to our oak cabinets! : )

Sissie's Shabby Cottage said...

Your kitchen looks great. Isn't it great to make it your own?
Thanks for visiting my blog and commenting, it means alot to me.
I am going to sign up and come back and visit you often.

Sissie

The Pleasures of Homemaking said...

Good job! So much brighter!

Thanks for visiting my blog! It's so nice to meet you. I'm going to post about the those toile tapers later today.

Manuela

Leigh of Tales from Bloggeritaville said...

What a fabulous transformation.!
Sorry I am so late. As it ended up, we did have a (6 hour) 2AM-8Am stint in the ER with my son. Praise God, all is ok. But,it's taken me some time to recover from being up all night. Alas, I am late in getting around to everyone this week. My apologies.
Sincere thanks for linking up to Tales from Bloggeritville Thrifty Thursday!

HUGS,
Leigh
Tales from Bloggeritaville
www.lbratina.blogspot.com

Sonia said...

Hi there, you did a great job here..nice coordination among the colors...

Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving comments, you really made my day. I'm new to the blogosphere and have only 5 followers as of yet, so comments matter a lot to me as encouragement!

Stacey @ Fun to Craft said...

Great job! I think the after pictures look awesome!