Our Kitchen Makeover

We've been wanting to redo our kitchen cabinets for a while -- a year or more.  I was afraid to do it.  I know that I am not a patient painter, and I was afraid they would turn out terrible and I would wish I had left them alone.  Finally, I decided it was time to put it on the calendar and get it done.  I freed my schedule for the week starting Sept 14th.  I was sure I could be done in a week -- or at least by my birthday (Sept. 28).  That was so optimistic of me!

In reality, everything takes a long time, and I realized the Saturday before my scheduled week, that I had seriously underestimated the time this was going to take.  The boys took off the doors and drawer covers that day.  When the sanding was done, and I started painting, I realized that I just couldn't physically manage to paint more than a couple of hours a day without giving myself a huge head / neck ache. Thankfully, with Derek's help, and his Mom's -- I didn't have to do all of the painting -- but it was still a lot!

By my birthday I had decided that I would shoot for finishing by Trisa's birthday (Oct. 18).  We actually accomplished that goal (for the cabinets), which was a bit more realistic.  Getting the counter tops replaced and the new sink in got done by November 4th.  Hooray!

This is the before picture -- I forgot to take it before we took the doors off!

The doors and drawer covers took over our garage for a few weeks.  We sanded them all, put on two coats of primer and then added two coats of paint -- with a bit of sanding in between most coats.

These are just primed I think, but they looked kind of the same in the garage when they were painted and so I didn't take another picture.  Derek's Mom came over to help finish up the priming one day.  That was super nice and probably cut a whole day off of our project!

I finished the cabinet boxes quite a while before the cabinet doors and drawer covers were done.
We were not tempted to keep the open cupboard look!

I was done with the red and black stools.  I discovered that a belt sander is really powerful.  It made short work of the old paint on top that was peeling.

Now our stools are black, and match the kitchen appliances and the new sink.

Here are the counter tops before the sink was in.

This is the kitchen all done.  Derek framed the kitchen window too.

Thanks to Derek, and my boys and Derek's Mom for all of their help.  I'd probably still be working on it if I had to do it all!  I'd for sure have had to hire a plumber if it weren't for Derek's skills!  The cabinet doors aren't perfect.  There are a few drips inside of the cabinets that need to be fixed.  But the outside looks great, and I love my mostly new kitchen!