My Kitchen Transformation

Ever since we bought our house, I’ve wanted to paint our kitchen cabinets white. There is so much wood in my house, I needed to brighten it up. Plus I just adore the Martha Stewart clean white kitchen look. Sean has been very resistant to this idea because well, you know how men are with their wood. I think they all want to be lumber jacks at heart. I finally just decided that since I am the one who spends the most time in the house (Sean is still traveling to Sunnyvale for work 50% of the time), that it was really my choice, not his, HA! He finally conceded my point (with a little push from my sister poo), and 4 weeks later, our kitchen is finally complete. No, we didn’t do the work ourselves (although, if I didn’t have 2 needy kids 2 & under, And Sean didn’t work in California, I probably would have attempted it).

This project took so freakin’ long because our first painter never showed up. He seemed so eager for the job and even confirmed the day before, but then he just never showed up….weird right? So then I spent the next week (2) getting new bids. Let me tell you that it really pays to get multiple bids. The price difference was enormous ($1050 vs. $2650). Naturally, we opted for the less expensive, non corporate guy. The following week (3) he finally got it done. At least I thought so. But the white I picked looked a lot different on the cabinets that it did in the paint bucket. In the bucket it was a creamy off white, but on the cabinets it is has a cool greyish hue to it. It’s super beautiful, but it is definitely not in the warm family of colors. This Cool Hued White did not work with my already antiqued white island, and the contrast just looked stupid (mixing warm and cool colors always looks stupid). Lesson learned, always test your paint color in your natural lighting. The lighting at the paint store is not the same as the lighting in your home, and lighting changes everything! So, week 4 I called my painter back and had him to the island the same color as the cabinets. I am in love. I’m so glad I did this, even though I’ve been without a kitchen for a month! We’ve been living off of premade Costco food. Its been kinda nice not cooking, but I’m way to scared to step on the scale.

Our painter is really a handy man, so we also had him move the kitchen light fixture to the middle of our kitchen table instead of the awkward position it was originally hung.

And here are the pictures, Drum Roll Please….. Oh, and please excuse the crappy pictures, my flash is in the shop and I took them at night, bc my kitchen is always a disaster during the day.

BEFORE- lots of honey colored knotty alder wood.

AFTER- crisp clean white, with a rustic feel (knots are still there, and the style of the cabinet is still rustic).