Kitchen Facelift - Before & After

Earlier this month, our kitchen got a major facelift!! We found a perfect combination of contractor work and DIY work to bring it to a beautiful state at a cost we are so happy with.

First, we finally sucked it up and paid a contractor to come in and paint our cabinets white. They were previously a light stained oak.

Before cabinets & counters

After cabinets!

Also note, we got a new microwave and stove! The microwave is brand new, but the stove was Marc's parents old one that his dad refinished the top of so it looks brand spankin new!! We had a gas line run as well, and I love cooking on it much better than the electric one. Not to mention we finally have matching appliances!!!

One more thing to note is those hideous light pink/peach countertops. The prior owners were so proud of this kitchen and the woman had designed it all herself. Bless their hearts they loved it, but wow how ugly!!!!! We have been talking about new countertops for years now and just have been delaying eating the cost of granite (plus I don't love the look, I want soapstone! but of course Marc wants granite, so here we are with pink still). Then, Marc threw out the crazy idea and said - let's just paint them and see what happens! So on a Friday night Home Depot run, Marc convinced me to just try it, so $20 later we came home with a can of this Rust-Oleum Countertop Coating and selected the most neutral gray color from the color chart on top. We thought, hey if it looks terrible, we are only out $20 and we want to get new counters eventually, so whatever, let's just try it!!

 

1 coat and an hour later, this is what we had!! I was 100% shocked with how evenly this stuff went on with a perfect texture, how great it looks and how easy it was to apply!! We let it dry and did another coat the next day and here is the finished product!:

After countertop paint!!!

don't mind the blue tape :)

Our next step is to continue the tan paint from the living room on the side walls into the kitchen, and do a tile back splash instead of the red wall. We also have a small wooden island on wheels that I want to repaint black and stain the butcher block top a darker wood color. But hey, for 2 days and less than $2,000, this was a huge dramatic change I couldn't be happier with!!!

Has anyone else ever used this countertop paint?? I had never heard of anyone doing it and am so surprised because it was cheap, easy, and looks great!

New Flooring - Before & After

Let me preface this post by saying that this whole project was started in early December and now we are in what month...? February?! What a project it's been and I am so so glad it's finally over. 

Marc and I knew right when we moved into the house that we would eventually want to rip out the carpet and put in hardwood in the living areas and new carpet in the bedrooms, we just weren't quite sure when we'd do it. Now that we're married and considering adding a dog to our family, we decided it was time to get this project out of the way.

 

To paint an accurate picture - this is what the living & dining rooms looked like before we moved in, so this is the previous owner's stuff... UGLY! haha.

 



Hi Kelly! :)

 

 

First, we started by ripping out the old carpet in the dining, living & family rooms, and the hallway. That was a pretty easy task, removing all the staples from the subfloor was the worst part - can you say blisters on our hands?! 

 Check out this beautiful linoleum from the 70s and some sort of odd electrical mat (we are thinking maybe it was a motion sensor for the alarm system)...

As you can see, the floor was covered in stains. The previous home owners had small dogs who had lots of accidents in the house and I guess they never cleaned up after them, because this spot below on the subfloor was STILL WET!! Talk about disgusting. We knew there was a carpet stain there and had cleaned it many times to try to get the smell out, but we never knew the extent of the damage. After using pet stain remover and bleach, Marc ended up chipping out the first layer of the subfloor, pouring in bleach then filling it with wood filler. THEN painting the problem areas with odor blocking paint. I think we finally got it....hopefully our house will smell normal soon!

Then, it was finally time to start laying down the laminate. After at least a month of research and bringing home samples from flooring stores, we chose the Select Surfaces Canyon Oak from SAM's Club which we found to be great quality for a great price! We also purchased their standard Premier from Armstrong underlayment. Since the laminate came with a pad already on the back, we opted not to upgrade the underlayment and have found that it was a good choice. When we walk on the floors, there is no "clicking" or echo sounds - great sound barrier!


The main reason this flooring took us so long was maneuvering from room to room, doorjams and around the oddly shaped kitchen cabinets. Lots of precise measuring, double checking, precise cutting (we borrowed my dad's chop saw and my uncle's small table saw and even used a handsaw for some of the intricate cuts and doorjams, all tools are a must!!). This is not a project for someone looking for a mindless update, it took lots of concentration, calculating and precision to make it come out right - just to give you an idea, each piece must be at least 12" long and 2" wide, so we had to measure the whole house and anticipate how long rows would be so we didn't get to the end and be left with a 5" gap... Lots of work!!


 Here is our first room transition!

In the kitchen, we decided to get a new dishwasher since the old one was on its way out anyways, plus the laminate is so thick that it would be a huge hassle to get the old one out after we put the flooring down. We are so happy with it! It runs so quietly and matches our fridge perfectly. Plus, Best Buy delivers the new one and hauls away the old one for FREE!! This is the link to the one we got. 

In the picture above, you can see the difficult angles of the kitchen cabinet/counter on the left of the photo - it's like a half-hexagon shape. That was a doosie!!

And so, I'd like to present, after 3 months of LONG, HARD work, the finished product!

still no furniture... :) but check out those baseboards!

 

the new beautiful "wedding wall" & new carpet in the bedrooms!

 

Also, here is a great shot from my beautiful sister-in-law's baby shower last weekend which was 100% our motivation for finishing the floors and baseboards last week! I will post more about the shower in a future post, so this is just a teaser.

 

 It turned out so perfectly and I can't wait to meet my little nieces in June! Now that the floors are done, I am excited to decorate the rest of the house since we have been putting off a lot of it since the carpet was so gross. We are so proud of ourselves for laying all the flooring ourselves! And thanks to our parents for helping with the finishing touches!

 

A Furniture Makeover Success

I completed this project a few months ago, but have received several compliments on how great this piece of furniture turned out so I wanted to document my process here on the blog-o.

My inspiration for this project came from Pinterest (of course)!

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Behold, our new coffee bar!!!

It's a great way to free up some kitchen counter space

and add some decor to a random blank wall.

First, I did some blog research of my own to determine which paint, brushes and process I should follow. After staring at a paint sample color in our living room for about a month, we finally decided we were comfortable with it and headed off to Lowe's.

We settled on a small can of this rusty cranberry/raspberry color Valspar paint in semi-gloss so that it would stand up well to any spills and easily clean up. I also picked up a small container each of Zinsser Primer and Minwax Polycrylic Protective Finish in clear to use as a coating on the top surface. I also picked up some foam brushes, a foam roller and several different grits of sandpaper. I already had some regular paint brushes, blue tape, tarps & gloves at home. I have learned that painting with gloves is a must!! No more having the "I have obviously been painting furniture" look on my hands & nails.

I started out by taking the dresser apart, removing the doors and hardware and setting it out on our driveway to begin sanding. Which proved to be the most arduous task. Sanding an intricate piece of furniture like this takes a loooooong time if you want to do a good job. Do you see the detail in the doors and legs? The electric hand sander was great for the flat surfaces, but I had to do all the fancy parts by hand of course.

After a good sanding and wiping the whole thing down, I was ready to prime! I painted the whole thing in 2 coats of primer (sanding once in between) to cover all the grain of the dark wood. Everything I read online said that if you want a quality painted piece of furniture, do not skimp on the sanding & priming stages. So I really took my time on these parts. I think I finished sanding and priming the first coat in one day, then sanded it again and did the second primer coat the following weekend.

A little something I learned about primer - don't use a brand new brush for primer unless you have paint thinner to clean it with... My brand new brush was ruined because the acrylic-based primer did not come out. Oh well... now I know for next time!

Then, the next weekend, I sanded again and did the first coat of color, which was so fun to see it on the actual piece of furniture! I used a regular bristle brush that worked great because the roller turned out to be annoying to use with all the curves and detail in the wood. Here you can see my set-up which was taking over half our garage for at least a month!

As you can see, I decided not to paint the inside of the shelves. I like to have a little glimpse of the "original" wood and plus I thought that sanding, priming, sanding and painting the inside shelves was a little pointless. I decided not to sand in between the two coats of color because the brush strokes were not severe.

After 2 coats of color, the following day, I applied the first coat of Minwax coating to the top surface. The trick with this was to apply a very thin coat and brush in only one direction or else it got sorta sticky and goopy. I let that dry for a few days then painted another coat of Minwax (I heard that if you didn't let it dry completely in between it got weird, so I went to the extreme).

Theeeeeen, I let it dry completely for about a week. If you don't let the Minwax dry for a long time before placing objects on the surface, it can leave marks and dents in it. After I brought it inside and set it all up, it has done great, so I would definitely recommend letting it dry outside for a while. It also kept all the fumes in the garage and our house didn't smell like paint or top coat.

I love how it turned out! I do want to get a little shelf to hang above it with hooks for our coffee mugs so they are there for easy access & some extra wall decor like from the inspiration picture above. Marc even said he might make one for me! Let's add that to the list of projects I have on his list... ;)