Kitchen Re-fresh...

    I have been promising a kitchen post. Well, here goes!

    I call this my kitchen re-fresh because there was no reconstruction. It consisted of paint,paint, oh and did I mention... Paint. ugh! (actually, I am still not done totally with the painting.) You know how one thing leads to another. Enough chatter, on with the show!

    First let's address the elephant in the room. The hunk of burnin' love fridge there. Yes, it is huge, but I love it. We are putting twins through college, so, knocking out walls and re-construction has to wait a few years. I work with what I got! Paint can really work wonders <<<. BAD BLOGGER ALERT>>> I didn't take before pictures. My kitchen has had white cabinets for a few years, so they got a fresh coat of white paint. The walls used to be yellow. This is one of the few pictures that shows that.

    The color was Laura Ashley cowslip #3. The color I have on the walls now was color matched to a material swatch that I had.If anyone is interested, I can try to get the info off the label or post a pic of it.

    I am really proud of the deal we got on the stove. A re-store moved in literally 2 minutes from my house. This stove was the first thing we bought there. Brand new and it was perfect. Let's just say we got a killer deal. I was really disappointed when we first started looking. None of the stoves I found had a flat top on the back so I could display my spice jars. This one did!

This is the second thing I am proud of. I had toyed with the idea of subway tile for the back splash.but I really want to achieve that farmhouse-fancy (farmcy) look with the re-fresh. Tile was nice but I just wasn't enthused. Then I found allen + roth embossed paintable wallcovering at Lowes. I chose the ceiling tiles pattern. It was relatively inexpensive, under $20.00 for one roll and I have a lot left. I painted it with gloss enamel and I think it looks fantastic.

We used to have a bar here. We tore that out  and I placed a hutch in the hall . We attached a large chalkboard to the back. It makes a wall now which I prefer to the open area. We still have some finishing work to do on the wall. My husband is a truck-driver so his time at home is very limited so I have to be very patient to get things done.

    You may have noticed, no handles. (if you didn't, you do now ) I just found some antique pulls on the internet and have ordered them. I will blog about them when I get them on. I did have brass but they didn't fit with the look I was trying to achieve.

    I have collected blue willow china for years. I kept most of it but added in enamelware and ironstone.

I am looking for cute holders for the dish soap so I can get rid of the ugly plastic squeeze bottles. This is the other chandelier I bought. it is a little large but this kitchen really has a light deficiency. I haven't had my husband hard wire it yet because I wanted to be sure I liked it there. I really love it so that is another project for Mr. 10-4 when he has the time.

The first sign I ever painted!

             

I hope you enjoyed my kitchen . I am glad it is finally (mostly) done. Now I have to paint the eating area furniture. At this point I wield a paint brush in my sleep! :)

                                                                                 Thanks for letting me share,

                                                                                                      Kathleen

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