Have you ever mentioned the word Painting or remodel to someone and the look of panic or disdain washes all over their face as they start backing away. That is my Honey. I love that a little paint can make a world of changes. I love to change things, move things around, dejunk... I get tired of the same old thing, but don't make changes often. Honey doesn't like change. He likes his food to taste the same each time, he does not like throwing things away because
"we may need it someday"...
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| Before and Blah |
Things have been a bit more than crazy and sad, but that will be for another post, but I made a promise in
this post with this closure
"Yes, if you give me a niggling of a dream, I'll run with it... More dreaming, improvements, and color to come!"
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| Tile options |
After tearing off the old useless wood shelf-like thing on the counter/backspash, we realized we needed to tile. Checking out several chain home-improvement stores, we narrowed the choice to two tile options - cheap white subway or a more expensive stone type. A friend told us about
a tile store in town that offered lots of choices and was less expensive. The difference was about $300, so we were thrilled to buy the tile we wanted for $175!
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| Tile done! |
After borrowing a tile saw, we spent a Saturday evening, cutting and installing the tile, we were tired, but oh so pleased. Honey did an awesome job doing all the cutting and lining each piece up. It just changed everything and
WOW!!! We LOVE it!!!
Next step - paint... I have a sweet friend, Lora, owner of Tea for Two, whom I got to know when she was Youngest's occupational therapist. It's funny how God constantly shows us how small the world really is. We got our sweet GSD,
Lady from Lora, she painted a wall in each of our kids' rooms. She is amazing talk to and be around. I mentioned to her in a text that I was planning on doing some painting to transform
my dream for my kitchen and asked if she knew anything about chalk paint... Well, one thing led to another and WALAH!!! Over homemade pizza with her family, she listened, questioned, restated, and eventually a plan was formed.
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| Lora at work - teaching as she goes |
The next morning, Lora and her momma arrived with paint brushes and inspiration. I was a lot intimidated and unsure of the end result, but knew she has such enthusiasm, inspiration, vision, and a huge design to not just do it, but to teach others how to take a dream and transform it to reality.
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| Old teal Barn inspiration |
Opening the gallon of Teal Lake paint was a bit scary, but I had my inspiration from a picture I saw at a friend's home. She explained the steps to achieve what I desired, showed me how to do each step and in a matter of two hours, I had a new kitchen color! Honey was/is not too happy with the "missing" cabinet doors, but I like it. I think every week, Honey ask me if I've found the cabinet doors. I added a small TV in the corner, with a Roku device. We don't use it much, but I like being able to watch Netflix or listen to music on it while I'm cooking.
Lora left me with some homework:
- distressing the remaining cabinets
- installing new knobs
- sewing new curtains
- painting Snack Shack
- Painting inside of cabinet doors
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| Curtains |
- apply sealer on cabinets
I was able to knock all but painting the inside of the cabinet doors and sealing the paint job.
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| Snack Shack |
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| Add caption |
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| Before and after |
The Before and after pix isn't the greatest, but I'm tickled with the results! It makes me strive to keep the counters cleaned! Thanks for stopping by and making it to the end of a LONG post. I'm glad you came!
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| Message center |
I wanted to add something to the side of the pantry - maybe a message board or place to display some pictures. This is what I have at the moment, but I'm open to change. What do you think? We talked about doing some chicken wire, corkboard, chalkboard paint, whiteboard... So I headed back to
Pinterest for some searching. Still not sure this is really what I want, but for the moment, this is it at this time.
What are the latest changes you've made in your home? Where did you get your inspiration and how long did it take you to accomplish your vision?
Even though Lora did not ask or know that I'm adding this info, if you would like to talk to Lora about transforming an area in your home in 2 hours or less, you can contact her at loratoland@gmail.com.
3 comments:
So did you use chalk paint on your cabinets?
I used regular latex paint from lowes, but after a month of curing, I sealed it with a polyacrylic sealer. While it changed it slightly and it no longer has the rough feel, like a barn, it is protected and looks more smooth. I am still pretty happy with the end result!
It looks great!!! (Your kitchen matches my pantry :-) Thanks for posting that link to the tile store - I'll need that before too long.... (you don't know of an economical place like that for fans/lighting around here, do ya??)
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