February 2010 Archives

After discussing our options about our house in Dallas, though we want to move to a bigger city, Wichita is a better place to be right now.  When I realized we would be here a while longer I decided to paint the kitchen.  I love how paint is a quick inexpensive way to change any room.  So last week while my husband was out of town I painted his kitchen.  Yes, the kitchen is his space; he does all cooking, clean up, and maintaining.  He didn't mind me painting; he worried about me reorganizing and my use of power tools for a nice little backsplash project.  My husband arrived home on Valentine's Day and was very happy with what I had done and for just under $100.

Here is before.  I'm not a fan of white and not in the kitchen.  The white walls behind the sink and oven were getting gross from normal wear and no backsplash protection. 

I also hated all the stuff we shoved up top of the cabinets because we had no where to put them.  Our china has been getting just nasty from kitchen grease dust.  We also shove stuff on top of the fridge and anywhere else, just adding to the mess.  The middle area being opened needed to be organized nicer too. 

I opted to paint this side wall too.  Here is before.  There are quite a few cords hanging down, that is because of the ghetto electrician that wired our apartment.  Everything except the wall the fridge is on and the bathroom is on one circuit.  If I'm ironing fabric in my office while Richard decides to microwave something we blow the circuit.  When Richard got his little convection oven for Christmas we decided to run a cord over to the other wall.  I'd rather no cords showing but we really can't be productive without them, so oh well.

Taking all the stuff off the top of the cabinets ended up being one heck of a workout.

We love bold colors.  We also wanted to coordinate with the cabinets and the spice orange wall in the living room since it's an open loft apartment. Before Richard left for his work retreat I had him help me pick some colors out of my paint chip box.  It's sad, humorous, and helpful that I own all the paint chips Home Depot sells and most of Lowes as well as odds and ends from other places.

Well, I settled on a color, bought it, and brought it home.  I began painting it and hated it.  I hated it being so much darker than expected, but I still loved the tone of the color.

Since I had painted quite a bit around our apartment, yellow, orange, and white, I had leftover paint color.  I used it to lighten the turquoise.  I rolled the new color on a few places then went to bed.  The next morning I discovered I really liked the new custom color, so I painted on. 

I also discovered in the process of painting the new color I could remove the center shelves, which obviously hadn't been moved from the last paint job.  Also something lame I saw while painting above the cabinets, was the previous painters stopped just above them, like they didn't want to be bothered painting up the 12 foot wall.  I didn't cop out.  I even painted behind the oven and refrigerator which was neglected too. 

For the left wall of the kitchen, I decided to lighten the paint even more.  Not a huge change but just enough to be non obvious.  I didn't want to close the kitchen in on the right and left.  The right wall, I left it white except for the little gap of wall that is separated by a big cement pillar.  I painted up the edge of it. 

After a light second coat on the walls and drying I reorganized against my husband's wishes.  I managed to put all dishes in cabinets including our china.  The spices used to be in the cabinet above the oven, which was hard to see and the heat is bad for the spices themselves.  I used some leftover heavy matt board cut to fit into the center of the slated shelves so the spices and other small things could go there. 

I have an awesome postcard collection that I used to cover on a wall in previous places I lived.  I wanted to somehow use them.  I dug though them and found ones with colors I thought would go with the kitchen.  I got scrapbook adhesive picture corners and mounted them on the wall behind the sink and oven.  Well, won't those get ruined??  Nope.

Now those power tools Richard was freaking out over me using... I made a removable backsplash.  I'll tell you... plexi glass is a pain to cut, but I managed to do it.  I mounted plexi in the whole back area over the postcards with just a few screws in the wall.  We have a pretty backsplash while being functional. 

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So... the grand reveal... the Kitchen completed!  Oh, I also bought that cute wooden fruit bowl for the island too.  The whole kitchen, less than $100. 

I like that the color of the walls also coordinates with my table runner and napkins.

Doesn't it look so nice up top now too!?

I'm really happy with it and so is Richard!

Cheers,

Kyle

A few months ago I bought some chairs from USHwy36 Treasure Hunt for $10.  I got all four for only $10!  They were looking pretty ugly, but I saw potential. I'm so excited to finally share my dining chair project.  It's taken me awhile because I was debating what to recover them in.  I screen printed some fabrics for them but didn't love it.  I finally made up my mind, so here is my reveal!

This is the chair before.  The fabric was some gross burlap/heavy twill awful.  The foam was thin and nasty.  The wood, as you can tell, needed a face lift.

Ta da and after!  I sanded the wood and painted it a nice chocolate brown.  I added new foam.  I recovered the chairs in some beautiful linen and added a cotton ruby inset to match my handmade table linens.  I machine appliquéd the cute graphic flowers to the linen on the seat.  Two are in the black flower print and two are in the brown flower.  The print came from Zarin fabrics in NYC that I bought while visiting last summer.  My husband was kind enough to screw the chairs back together after I had problems with the drill.

Awhile ago we sanded down our dining table and refinished it because it was all scuffed up from moving a few times.

Here is it taken apart but before we sanded and stained it.  The top was natural wood while the legs painted white.

Here are the chairs at the finished table!  We stained the table in a nice dark finish.  Ignore the two end chairs, they are temporary.  I have yet to find some end chairs to replace them... or maybe a bench for one end.  But alas, here it is so far. 

We have been sitting on metal folding chairs for months while I hunted for some chairs to refinish, but it was well worth the wait.  They are comfy and pretty.  I heart!  The kitties like them too :)

Cheers,