Blog

So we finally did it. We started our kitchen remodel. It was honestly one of the first things we wanted to redo when we moved in in October but we knew it was our biggest project.

What we’ve been able to do so far is Phase One. Phase Two will have to wait until quarantine is over and we can get contractors in for countertops. Until then here is how we transformed our kitchen for under $300!!

Let’s start with the before:

We had the SAME maple cabinets in our last house and as we will tell everyone, yes they are nice but they are ORANGE. Not really are style. In our last house we painted them grey. You can read more about that here. This time I really wanted WHITE. We used the same paint we used for the cabinets in the laundry room remodel, half bath remodel and master bath remodel. As you can tell we really like this paint! I swear it works miracles. We have them tint the paint to Pure White from Sherwin Williams.

BUT before we get to the painting we decided to add a little “flair”. We wanted to close off the space between the cabinets and the ceiling. It was only 10 inches so not really tall enough to “decorate” above the cabinets. We did this by first creating planks that we could nail the sheet of panel too.

Once those were up we were able to add the paneling that we ripped to size and then added trim on the bottom and top.

The other piece of “flair” we added was nailing a 1 x 1/4 inch board to the bottom of the cabinets to add a trim piece. You can see it in the below picture.

So back to painting….I really wanted to prime these first, which is something I didn’t do with the other cabinets in the house I had already painted. I figured since these were “touched” more it would be a good idea. I WAS WRONG. The paint that I use is self leveling so unless you SAND AFTER you PRIME it doesn’t look very good. I am glad I painted these in phases so I was able to see my mistake early on and correct it.

We cheated on the front of the peninsula and used a ship lap panel that was the perfect width!

Next up was tackling the hood vent. This will get a blog post of it’s own. It was a project my husband would never like to relive again but I LOVE how it turned out!

Doesn’t that look so much better than a microwave?! I love it!!

So just to recap here is the before and afters!

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

In the end all that we used was paint, trim, 2 pieces of paneling, 4 pieces of poplar and new hardware!! I really love how affordable this project was and think it made a HUGE difference! Now for countertops, backsplash and appliances!

Hope you enjoyed!!

~Julie