Spice Down My Kitchen

The kitchen in this house is exactly as you would expect from any 1930's cottage - small, cramped, and closed in. So, when we first moved in, the drab old cabinets and grandma wallpaper had to be spiced up big time. We wanted color to make it feel new, bright, fun - and to convince us to hang out in there long enough to cook! So, we went bold and painted the cabinets two tones of lime green, and an orange sherbert color for the walls. While it was definitely bold and spicy like we wanted, we got sick of it pretty quickly. So, 2 years later, we decided to try again.... This time, we wanted to spice it down :)

Here are a couple "in progress" pictures of Alvin and I working like crazy!

"Spicing down" our kitchen didn't mean we wanted it to be boring and drab again. We wanted a mix of classic, fresh, and modern. So by painting virtually everything including the countertops and floors and replacing all the hardware, I think we acheived what we were looking for!

The things I like the most are:
(1) The fake beadboard on the cabinet doors. Thanks to my good friend, Susan (her blog), for this awesome idea!!! It's just paintable wallpaper in a beadboard pattern that is actually raised so that it looks and feels almost like the real thing. It added so much character to the space!
(2) The backsplash really gave us that modern look. It was so easy and cheap, just plastic tiles that you cut to size and then glue on.
(3) The countertops were the toughest part, but made a huge difference. Who knew you could paint over laminate - another one of Susan's ideas, thanks Susan!! We painted them with a textured Ralph Lauren paint to look kind of like concrete. Then we put on a layer of resin (equal to 60 coats of polyurathane) which gave it the smooth, shiny look that makes a great working surface and is easy to clean.

And, the big reveal....