Kitchen cabinets facelift

Posted by: Paulette
When I moved into our house 8 years ago, I loved the white washed cabinets in my kitchen. After living with them for a while, and seeing that they were easily stained with red kool aid, I decided that the res kool aid had to go. I guess this wasn't enough. They still always looked dirty, and I wanted a more updated look for the kitchen. My original idea was just to paint the cabinets black. Just that. Well, we all know how home improvement projects snowball! I distressed and stained the edges, and then bought new drawer pulls and cabinet pulls. they look great! Too bad my camera doesn't capture that. So, here are the pictures anyway.

 The original cabinet color matched the wall color, almost exactly. I took off the cabinet doors on these cabinets years ago, but with the pop of color behind my white dishes and crystal/glasses it looks better than ever. You can also see my new homemade light fixture in this picture. I love how it goes with the space.
The block of brown in the corner is my farmer's kitchen table. I'm still undecided on whether to paint the skirt and legs of this antique white. I'd have to do something with the chairs if I did, and I like being able to scrub right down to the wood. Yogurt is very hard to get off once it dries.

 In the picture above you can see one of my chairs. You can also see my antique rolling pin. I was given one by my grandmother, and the kids broke it. I went to an antique store and bought one just like it. I do use it, but the kid's aren't allowed to anymore.

 You can better see the distressed edges and some of the hardware I bought for the cabinets and drawers. I wanted something simple. If it were too fancy, the kids would pull them off and hide them with their treasures. We can't have that! I love the contrast of the white pulls with the black paint.

 

This is actually a plant hook that I re-purposed as a towel hook. It didn't show up at all against the original color of the cabinets. The dish towel, is homemade from a shower curtain. More about that in another post.
I've not decided what color to paint the kitchen. As you can see, it opens up into the living room areas, and they'd all have the be the same color. I'm thinking about a light gray. But until I get a very tall ladder to paint the walls leading up to the vaulted ceiling, I can't do anything about it.

So there it is. I still hate the Southwestern tiled back splashes, bu the money for that kind of renovation just isn't in the budget. So I'll live with it. Ideally, I would love the have subway tile back splashes and granite counter tops.