A Kitchen Makeover

Before:

We've lived in this house for 7 years, and had never touched the kitchen. When we first looked at the house, we saw the blue wallpaper and border, and baby blue walls, and said ohhh we'll fix that. No big deal. Well, we fell in love with the house, moved in, and the kitchen never bothered us. So we left it alone. The white curtains were there when we bought it, and they made the kitchen light and airy. We learned to like the blue. Or maybe we just ignored it. Either way, it stayed around. As did the fluorescent panel lights.

Those things BUZZED. Incessantly. When I was left alone to read or cook, the buzzing overpowered the silence, and became unbearable. I don't know why it took us so long to get rid of them. But we finally did- hallejujiah! Jake ripped out the panels, the long fluorescent bulbs, and inserted canned lighting. Then we had some dry wall guys come and patch the big rectangle hole in the ceiling, and texture the ceiling. Then Jake painted the ceiling white. Done and done.

Next step: Operation REMOVE WALLPAPER

It's dirty work. Even for these cute girls.

My wonderful mother-in-law volunteered to come and tackle this project head on. We spent 2 days spraying, scraping, tearing, sweeping, and chatting. It was fun.

Some wallpaper was more finicky than the rest. This wall was particularly banged up from previous times.

It was tricky to get all the nooks and crannies. But we did it. Emma did MOST of it. Bless her!

Here's a shot of the new canned lighting- it makes such a difference! No more buzzing, and so much more atractive!

Here's the finished wallpaper removal, with the curtain rod and curtain taken down. 

 On a whim, we decided to install a subway tile backsplash. So glad we did! Jake is a whiz at tiling, too, so he took the project head on. First step: remove the counter lip backsplash thing.

 Done.

 A few several trips to Home Depot were made...

Jake's Dad came on  a Saturday to get the project done. He brought his tile saw, and they worked hard and got it done.

It makes such a difference! This is before the white grout was added.

I like the gray grout look, and wanted it, but we decided to go with white since it's easier and cleaner looking. Isn't it impressive that they even tiled all the way down to the floor behind the stove??

After much deliberation, we decided to paint the kitchen with Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray. It's nice and neutral, with a hint of beige in it. Jake did all the painting- what a champ! Then it was my turn to get a new double curtain rod, and find some nice colorful yet light and airy curtains, to extend from the ceiling to enlarge the room. I found these teal ones at Tuesday Morning, and the white sheers at Lowes with the curtain rod.

 We found this white framed oval mirror at TJMaxx, which was a perfect thing to fill the space and help enlarge the small kitchen space.

 As of now, this is what it looks like. I'm still going to add things to the walls, but I wanted to have some beachy things to remind how much I love the beach.

After:

 There are still pops of color to add, like a nice bright coral color, but I think there is vast improvement in the overall kitchen.

What a refreshing difference little changes can make!