After years of talking about redoing this kitchen we finally took the plunge. And as is our normal routine, we started out with really grandiose ideas of gutting the whole thing and putting in all new everything. Of course, that was a pipe dream, which is why it was only ever talked about. We talked about just making new cabinet doors that were more modern looking. We talked about remaking all the cabinet boxes with newer materials. What we ended up doing was realizing that the cabinets functioned just fine, just with no bells and whistles :( . So we decided that the most practical thing to do would be to simply paint the cabinets and leave the floors and counters as is. I wanted to update the look of the cabinets and I love the look of beadboard, so we toyed with the idea of cutting sheets of beadboard to fit inside the inset of each cabinet door. Then I learned that you can buy wallpaper that looks like beadboard and is paintable. A roll was about $25. So we cleaned the cabinets really well, cut beadboard wallpaper to fit and started painting.
Usually I have a really hard time deciding on paint colors. It's been my decorating nemesis. But I knew I needed to pick something that would go with the yellow countertops since we wouldn't be replacing them. Yellow and gray have been the "in" color combo the last few years so I decided to go with gray cabinets. I decided I wanted to lighten up the upper cabinets after years of dark brown cabinets, so I chose a lighter gray, (True Value Antique Silver) for the uppers. However, I didn't want a light color on the lower cabinets because I've had white cabinets before and the lowers get disgustingly filthy. So I went with a color two steps deeper on the same paint chip card, (True Value Mountain Gray), for the lowers. I also chose a very light grey-white for the walls. (True Value Cadet Gray)
My plan is to accent with yellow (like my kitchen-aid) and aqua. Keeping the overall feel calm with the gray but with pops of color to brighten things up. We were going to do beadboard wainscoting on a couple of walls with yellow paint above to tie it all together but I think we've decided to shelve that idea and just use the colors as accents.
Our long term plan is to eventually remove the wall between the living and dining rooms. I've fought that idea for a long time, but it recently dawned on me that I spend 90% of my day in the kitchen area and we set aside 60% of the living space on this level as a living room that we only use at night to read scriptures in. If we open the space up it becomes a much more family-friendly and efficiently used space rather than underutilized space. Anyhow, that's the plan and here's what we've done so far...next up, wall paint. As soon as track season and school are done!
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| A shot showing the two-toned cabinets. I really like them. I'm super happy with how they turned out. I don't think the wallpaper is going to be a good long-term solution, but if it buys us a few years til we knock down walls, it will be fabulous. I think it will take a lot of abuse on the lower cabinets. But it was an inexpensive way to change the look of our kitchen and I'm happy we did it. |
