Kitchen Makeover!

Lately, the weather in Duluth has not been all that great! Instead of focusing time and energy on my flowers, I decided to tackle my horribly dated kitchen. Little did I know when I started, how big of a project it was going to be. Looking back though, I'm so glad that I decided to go through with it. I couldn't be any happier with the results. Well, I could if I had new, fancy appliances and new flooring but that will come with time!

Here are some before photos. It may not look all that bad, but trust me, it was gross! The walls were super beat up, the wall paper was peeling, the wainscoting was dirty and the cabinets really dated the whole look.

The first thing I tackled was removing the wallpaper boarder and what I thought was the wallpapered ceiling. I used DIF gel and a scraper for the boarder. Much to my surprise, after about 5 minutes of spraying the boarder with DIF gel, the boarder fell off. I figured since the boarder was so simple to remove, the ceiling would be the same. Not so much. Turns out, the previous owners used contact paper on the ceiling. Why, I may never know. For any of you that have dealt with contact paper, you know that it's not easy to remove. I was able to remove the entire first layer but after about 5 hours of spraying and scraping, I only had about a 6" area down to the original ceiling.

After screaming and cursing, I decided that it would be best to leave the glue layer up. Boy am I glad I did that! I did end up mudding the seams and sanding it down to give a smooth look. I painted the ceiling the same color as the wainscoting and cabinets (Sail Cloth). I figured that way, I wouldn't have to worry about getting the cabinet paint on the ceiling when I got to that point!





The next thing on my list was the wainscoting and oak trim work. It took 3 coats of Ultra paint from Menards. I wish I would have primed it first but there's no sense in going back now. I used an eggshell finish, the color is Sail Cloth. I also removed some decorative, curvy boards above the stove and sink to open the space up some. Then, I tackled the top half of the walls. As you'll learn, I'm not a fan of shiny finishes...at all! So, right, wrong or otherwise, I used a flat finish for the top portion of the walls. I'm ok with this because I have no children and don't anticipate many hand prints or smudges. I used Ultra, flat finish in Mineral Blue.

Then, the hard part began, the cabinets! We have 40 cabinet faces in our kitchen, a lot of small ones! I took down all of the cabinet faces, sanded them down, primed then and applied 3 coats of the same paint I used on the ceiling and wainscoting. I also replaced the cabinet pulls with some new, simple brushed nickel pulls. I wanted to replace the hinges as well but it just wasn't in the budget. So, I cleaned them all with water, soap and a toothbrush, primed them and painted them with Rustoleum Metallic Finish Brushed Nickel spray paint. It was a lot easier than I anticipated and saved me about $150!

It took me a little over a week, a lot of blood, sweat and even some tears, but I finally finished what I started. I'm so thankful that my fiance is patient and didn't mind that our kitchen was a disaster for as long as it was! I love the new look so much, instead of going on the computer in the office or on the deck, I sit in the kitchen now. :)