Kitchen update

Kitchen work has begun!  I wanted to update you with progress, ideas, and decisions.

First of all, let me remind you of what we're starting with...

(Blah)

The first thing to go was the heavily ornate crown molding on the tops of the cabinets, and the valence.  It's gone.  Totally.  And you know what?  My window that's been hiding behind that thing for Lord knows how many years is SUPER cute.  I'm so glad it can be seen now.

After doing that, I noticed there were notches out of the cabinets where the valence had been.  You can see it in the picture above.  After a little more exploring, I realized that the wood color on my cabinets was not what they originally had been.  Somewhere along the life of the cabinets, someone had chosen to reface them with a plywood veneer.  It was loose, and cheap looking, and I could see the cabinets underneath were solid wood, so what did I do?  I ripped the veneer off all the upper cabinets, of course.  

Beautiful, right?

At some point, they'd been painted white.  Peeling off the veneer took a lot of the paint (ok, and maybe a small bit of the wood here and there too) off.  I'm planning to go around and strip them all now so I'm starting with a smooth finish.  This has led me to the decision that I will not be using chalk paint on the cabinets.  Nope- no quick fix for these guys.  I'm going the route of stripping, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, sanding, painting, sanding, and sealing.  It's a lot more work, but I know it's going to be worth it, and I'm planning on working on them bit by bit.

I spent a lot of time agonizing (and making friends and family agonize with me) over paint colors.  I decided a couple times, changed my mind a couple times, bought the paint once, and went back to have it retinted, but I think I finally have the colors chosen.

The trim is Valspar Ultra white in gloss (I can't show you a sample of this, because it doesn't show up online!  It's essentially the same as the white on your screen.  Really bright and crisp).

Walls will be Olympic paint's Garlic Clove in Satin finish.

It's very light.  Without having the ultra white next to it, it would work as a white itself, but it has a nice, subtle contrast to it.

I'm still agonizing over the cabinets.  I really, REALLY want stainless appliances and crisp white cabinets, but new appliances are not a justifiable expense right at the moment.  Not to buy only to possibly turn around and sell our house in a year and a half.  It may help the house sell faster, but it won't help our house sell for more.  That said, I bought gray paint for the cabinets.

It's a Valspar color- Gull- in semi-gloss.

However, before I get to painting cabinets, I needed to get rid of the orange-red walls.  I gave everything a quick coat of primer, and took the ceiling fan out to prep it for paint (and just to get rid of it...it really dwarfed the space).  The pantry area in back will be worked on as well soon, but I can only handle so much junk out of place at once, and I have to completely empty the food out from the shelves to prep and paint, so kitchen first, then pantry!

I'm amazed by how much larger it looks already.  No ceiling fan.  No heavy molding.  No valence.

This weekend my mom came up and helped with the boys so I could get the molding cut.  So it's finished (mostly), and assembled.  I'm not attaching it until the cabinets are stripped and ready for paint, so I still have a small piece of trim to cut and attach to hide the seams, and caulk around any gaps.

It's coming along nicely, and I'm planning to provide you with instructions on cutting and assembling the molding.  It took me a lot of searching around the web to figure it out.

Here's a final progression of pictures to show you the changes over the last week without scrolling.

I'm so excited about this project!  I'll be back with more updates soon!