Offsite Kitchen Makeover

This is such a fun (unfinished) makeover for me to share. I had the chance to paint my parent's kitchen cabinets over the last couple of weeks. I was visiting my family for Greek Easter (Christos Anesti!) and flew out a little early to give it a much needed update. My parents built this house in 1989 and have not updated the kitchen much since moving in.  

First up: Remove the cabinet over the peninsula. It really closed off the kitchen and made it feel darker and smaller. If you were sitting at the bar you almost had to hunch over to talk to people in the kitchen. 

 And just like that the kitchen opened up a ton. 

To prep the cabinets for paint we cleaned them with a really strong de-glossing cleaner and then used liquid sander de-glosser. After the de-glosser dried I primed the uppers with a white and the lowers with a gray primer. I did 2 coats of primer and felt pretty comfortable that this was sufficient for potential bleed through.

We also removed, cleaned, and labeled all the hinges. I had the intention of spray painting them to match the hardware my parents chose but it didn't look good. It was too faux looking. We ended up finding the exact same hardware in the proper finish (satin nickel) and replaced them. There was only one cabinets that we needed to drill new holes for so I'll call that a win. 

After 2 coats of Kelly Moore Durabond cabinet paint, rehanging all the doors, lots of cussing, and some last minute touch ups this is where we ended up. 

They have already ordered the new counters and also my dad will finish installing all the hardware on the doors and drawers. My time just simply ran out. 

Ignore the half painted back splash. 

 I did install a couple of the knobs so we could see them up. Love love how it turned out. I love that you can see the texture of the woodgrain. 

 The new counter will be a white and grey quartz countertop. I can't wait to see it when its installed. I'll post more pictures once they are installed. 

After the counters go in and hardware is installed they will be tiling the backsplash, replacing the gigantic light with recessed lighting, and refinished the hardware floors. It will be a whole new kitchen!

New Playroom & DIY Clipboards

My kids have too much stuff. I think this is something most parents feel and say all the time. Originally we had our kids toys, books, stuffed animals in our upstairs TV room. I hated it! When we moved the girls into the same bedroom this opened up our back bedroom for their toys. I moved everything down to this room but never gave it a face lift or even organized anything. The embarrassing truth is, most days it ended up looking like this...

I seriously cleaned this room all the time. My issue with this room is that because I am usually on the other side of the house the girls rarely played in it for long periods of time. We have an office/guest room that was closer to the kitchen so I decided to pull a little switcheroo.

We haven't done anything with the guest room (or as I called it, the room of requirement) since we painted it. It was basically a storage room with a bed. I wanted to move the playroom here because it is the closest room to the kitchen and the back room has a closet (better for the guest room). Here is a look back where we started: 

 After a fresh coat of paint and a trim makeover. The color looks a little beige but its really a light grey.

Now a new and improved playroom! 

Almost all the furniture in here is hand me down. I painted the bookshelves white so they would match. I tried to really give everything a place so cleaning up will be a little easier. It is a little cluttered but I sort of like that for a playroom. I feel like it gives the girls access to everything and its also very colorful. I made that chalkboard for the space. I love art that can change based on our moods.  

I think my favorite part of the room is the clipboards I made for the girl's art (details below). They turned about better than I envisioned and Amelia LOVES seeing her art up there. 

I plan on making a frame for the map that will match the wood on the clipboards. Also how cute is that little tea party in progress. That little door is a storage area. I put paint and craft supplies in there so I can access them easily but the girls can't ;)

This room doesn't have a closet so I hung up an Ikea rod and made a little dress up area with accessories in the trunk below.

 

I put a some personal touches above the dress up area as well. A picture of our wedding day with us all dressed up and the girls in their Easter dresses last year. I think I would like to get a great picture of the girls in dress up clothes and put that here as well.

The clipboards were so easy and inexpensive. I decided on 11x14 because most pages will be 8x10 or 8x11 so it will naturally frame the artwork. We actually had 12 pieces of already cut plywood (the perfect size no less) in the garage. No kidding. My dad was helping Brian with a project and cut a few extra pieces. Easy peasy. 

I am all about using what I have so I stained them with a Dark Walnut Miniwax stain. I lucked out and found these brass paper clips in the clearance section at target. 

 A dab of super glue and tada! clipboards. I love that the clips are all different shapes too, perfect for a playroom    

I added small picture hangers to the back (which was the hardest part) and now we have the perfect spot for all the preschool artwork! 

 I ended up with 8 because it suited the space. 

I have been working my buns off these last two weeks. I finished the playroom (clearly) but I also painted the guest room, added hardware to my kitchen cabinets (FINALLY), and am working on an address planter box for the front of the house. Hopefully I can get those projects wrapped up and post that here soon. I am a busy girl when Brian goes out of town! I curse myself everyday because of pure exhaustion but then I am so happy that the projects are done. 

Happy Thursday!

Paint All The Things!

I know I know, all I do is paint. But I have to say I feel like paint is the handiest tool in any DIYer's belt. I promise we will do an actual renovation at some point, hopefully this summer(I'm looking at you master bath). 

So this week I've decided to paint one of the doors in our kitchen. It's the glass door leading into the sunroom upstairs. At first I wanted to strip it and re stain it but after a while I felt like it needed a little more contrast. Paint it is. Here is where we started. 

Here is after lots of paint and new floors...where we left you last.  

Better shot of the doors. Eventually I will paint the solid door. I want to wait until summer when I can leave it open since it leads out to the garage. 

And after!!

Since our appliances are black I felt like it would balance the room out nice to add a little black. I used the color Carbon by Behr. I used an interior enamel paint in semi gloss. Sticky hands are constantly touching this door so it needed to be durable and wipeable. I also plan on painting/staining the stairs behind (and maybe add a runner). So much to do!

I ended up taking the tape off and just painting the glass. Its almost always easier for me to just scrape it off after. 

It gets a little better with each small upgrade. 

Taking a trip to Ikea next weekend! Hoping to pick up a couple of lack shelves and maybe replace that light fixture over the table. We'll see. 

Happy Friday!

New (painted) Bedroom Furniture

A month after we got married we went to buy a bed (we were sleeping on an air mattress) and ended up leaving with a bedroom set. It has now moved with us 6 times and it was showing it. Also while it was really nice it wasn't necessarily my style. We planned on getting rid of it but never pulled the trigger. Finally I decided that before we get rid of it I would at least try and paint it to see if that would save us a trip to the furniture store. I am a terrible shopper. I have really bad buyers remorse and the only time I buy anything is when Brian is there to force me. It's obnoxious. Anyway, back to the bedroom set. 

Here it is in our Georgia home. It didn't look bad in this space. 

And yikes here it is in our bedroom in Maine..before painting the walls. So dark and dreary. 

I thought it would look better once I painted the walls but it was not good. The floors and lighting down there screams for lighter furniture. 

The process of painting took a few days. I would do a coat in the evening, taking around 2 hours per coat. I used Kilz primer (2 coats) and Benjamin Moore Advance in Simply White (2 coats). Before I started I used a liquid deglosser instead of sanding. Saves a lot of time and mess. Also I used a 4 inch foam roller which I find to be key for that smooth finish. 

It's like new!

We took off the foot board to fit it in this space in our room and I painted the head board a charcoal grey. I had originally planned on doing it all white but I knew the room would have a lot of lighter hues so I chose dark for a couple accents. Plus it matches the dust ruffle which is nice. When painting the headboard, and Brian's dresser, I used chalk paint. This was my first time using it and I can say I am a believer. It was so easy to work with, required no prep work, and dried with no brush marks. I ended up using a polyurethane over the top. I love the way it turned out and it was much easier and significantly faster than the rest of the furniture. 

When I was painting the big mirror I didn't tape it off. I usually do that with windows and then use a razor to scrape of the paint. Well because it's the advance line it hardens and it took forever to scrape it off. I definitely should have taped it. Hindsight...

We also got a new rug that covers the bulk of the open space. We ended up getting a carpet remnant and having it bound. The rug is actually 12X8 (this room is really long) and it cost under $150. I wanted close to a linen color for the rug (a little nod to sand) and I think it really makes the room look much cleaner. 

When I was painting I let Amelia "paint" the door. So that looks really great right now. Eventually I will paint the doors but I am waiting for summer. Our closet is unfinished and gets freezing so the door has to stay closed all the time in the winter. 

The rug actually looks darker in the pictures. It's a white/linen berber carpet. The lighting in here is really terrible so these pictures are the best I can do. We've come so far in here. I can't wait to cover up that amazing vinyl tile. In the meantime I feel like I have new bedroom furniture! 

Happy Saturday!