Kitchen Reno

Last summer we had an appliance melt down.  First the stove…and then the dishwasher.  Slowly but surely we have gone around replacing each one a little at a time!  Boy are appliances a big expense!!  That being said our last and final purchase was a fridge (my heart skipped a little beat to be able to move our $250 divorce sale fridge into the garage and finally have 2 fridges to stock! Feeding 5 people takes space!).  The final purchase spurred us into action and though I have big plans for a whole kitchen/dining renovation in the future…this one gave us the sophisticated look I have been craving for some time now and will help us keep on track for waiting till the timing is right for that major update!  It's amazing what some new flooring and paint can do for a space.  Our main floor is coming together in a way it never has before. And we are one paint-filled weekend away from having the whole main floor of the house exactly as we have always wanted it!!

Here are some before and afters:

Goodbye Americana themed red white and blue…hello neutral.  We have incorporated a color palette from Sherwin Williams called Traditional Twist.  We've taken colors from the palette and incorporated them all over the house including the boys room and main floor.  In the kitchen we chose Sand Beach for the back splash, Incredible White for the walls, ceiling and trim, and Foothills for the cabinets.

 Testing the cabinet color. Our old cream is on the side and the new color on the doors and drawers.

 My little helper:

 New floor!  Goodbye yellowing linoleum…hello floating vinyl floor.  We picked up about 6 different varieties of vinyl flooring and returned two boxes of something we pulled the trigger too soon on. Not settling was the best decision ever!

Ready for the fridge delivery the next morning:

 The beautiful new addition!

 All finished up!  As I said there is a major renovation in my mind that would change the landscape of everything in the main floor of the house…think island, sliding door and a wall blow out...but for now…this is the change we needed!  And my blue counters flow so much better.  After years of work I finally found a way to pull my pottery (the inspiration for the whole navy color in the first place) and the navy throughout the kitchen and I'm also working on bringing it through the whole house!

Somewhere along the way I dreamed up a piece of art for the kitchen.  A few 1x4's and some hubby help assembling and I set to work.  I love how easy and cheap it was.  We already had the paint so I think this was my cheapest project to date.  We purchased 4 1x4x8's and they were less than $1.50 each.  Cannot beat it! And I am very happy with the rustic, hand-crafted look that it gave us. It is far from perfect…but I did it myself and that's my favorite part.  It's an original all the way down to the handwritten lettering!  I've since added an Est 2005 (the year we married) in the corner.  Just a little something it was missing!