Kitchen Remodel....

 ~ Greetings and Warm Welcome to all ~

Thank you so much to those of you who left me such lovely comments and wonderful words! it gladdens my heart, more than you will ever know. 

Thank you!

I'm going to do a series of posts just to "catch you up" on what we have done this summer. 

Today's Post is all about our: Kitchen Remodel

For a period of about a month we lived like we were camping....inside our house. We wanted to do a series of "refreshes" all over our home. Batter #1 up was the kitchen. 

BEFORE: Now many people said: Your kitchen was lovely...why would you want to change it? Well....to make a long story short: our cabinets were custom, made in a woodshop of a local cabinet maker. As soon as we moved in, the finish on them started flaking off, sometimes in large sheets. We called the builder, who in turn called the cabinet maker.....he came and took the doors off and I was 9 months without doors on my cabinets....in a new home. I was fit to be tied. Finally doors were returned and they were better but soon started doing the same thing. By this time the cabinet maker declared bankruptcy...I wonder why?

Anyhoo....I lived with the cabinets for 15 years and it was ready to make them better. 

We stripped the cabinet facings....

and all the doors....

Primed everything and then did 3 coats of cabinet paint in mountain peak snow

While I was painting inside, Keith was sanding and stripping doors to have them prepared for me to run out in between coats inside to do coats outside in the garage on the doors...

and while I was running inside and outside painting, Keith was cutting wood to fit in the tops of my cabinets to make a flat surface AND installing LED up lights along the top and LED down lights along the bottom of our cabinets - I have been wanting these done like this for YEARS!

at the end of 7 days the painting was done and Keith bought me a cake because I was completely exhausted and he knows how much cake revives my spirit....LOL!

here's a shot of how our kitchen appears today....

I have my extensive vintage Ball Jar collection displayed to perfection (in my humble opinion) with the LED backlighting them beautifully...

In 25 years of marriage....I have never picked my own appliances - Keith has always done it and frankly I never really cared but for our redo I DID care and I told him to open up his pocketbook because I wanted all stainless steel appliances. They are all Whirlpool - Keith's Daddy worked at Whirlpool soldering appliances for 50 years in Evansville, IN. We only ever purchase Whirlpool, American made, appliances. 

Our dining room table and chairs and our hutch are all Indiana made furniture. The dining table and chairs are by Tell City Furniture and the hutch is Keller. Both companies are now defunct. I was going to paint the hutch and the table and chairs white....but as I painted the cabinets I kept thinking about them and after I got the cabinets done I had decided that NOPE, I wasn't going to do it. These are fully wood, no wood chipboard. That's hard to come by. The table and chairs (well 4 of the chairs) I ate on from the time I was 4 years old (that makes the table and chairs: 47 years old....) Given to me by my Mom when I married, I didn't want to ruin them. So to make a long story short, I kept them true to themselves, and I'm glad I did. I did do a little refinishing on them - they are really worn in the seat and along the top of the chair backs and spindles. You can still see the age to them - they are nowhere near perfect...but my home has a cozy, lived in feel to it and they fit in.... a little shabby chic. Ha ha!

Until next time....

I hope you enjoyed our kitchen remodel. I didn't really ENJOY it but I sure LOVE it now that it is done!

Big hugs and lots of love in stitches, 

Vonna xxxx