Resurfacing the Kitchen

Not long after I had the dining room complete I was itching to re-surface the kitchen. It didn't take much for me to convince my husband too, partly because the dining room looks into the kitchen by a large doorway, as if it is part of the dining room.

We would eat dinner in a pretty dining room and look into a kitchen that had mismatched fruit wallpaper, orange-ish wood cabinets, mauve counter tops, a ceramic sink that was losing the enamel and rusting, wooden hardware on the cabinets and another florescent light bar.

A view of the tan ceiling, mismatched wallpaper,
almond color fridge and the wood colors... 

Originally I wanted two tone cabinets, where the bottom was dark gray and the top white. The more blogs I read the more I found people that painted their cabinets white weren't happy in the long run due to the original color bleeding through, even though they sanded their cabinets down. SO, I settled on all dark gray. The the dark cabinets I wanted a white counter top, but didn't have the funds to replace them. I was definitely getting new hardware and was looking into a new sink until Tim found a stainless steel sink, one of many, in the hog house where the family put their "spares". I was also buying a fan, that matched the dining room, to put in the kitchen to help with the hot summer days.

First we had to remove all the wallpaper which was so gratifying and actually the easiest room in the house. All I used was the below pictured scraper, that I found at my local Ace Hardware, and a fabric softener and water mix. It took maybe 4 hours to remove all of the wall paper.

Next I patched the wall using the same tool and a wall filler I had on hand, this one. Once my patching was complete I painted the walls and trim all the Chalk white. This small change alone made a huge difference.

Finally the cabinets. I prepped the top upper cabinets to be painted. Since I was doing this alone, on a budget and wanted to be done in a certain time frame I chose to use General Finish Queenstown Gray and I sealed it with General Finish Top Coat.  My reason for this choice was because there was no sanding required. I started by taking all the doors off the upper cabinets and putting the hinges and screws in a safe place. I then started really cleaning/scrubbing my cabinets with soap and water and letting them dry. I prepped the cabinets with Krud Kutter Prepaint Prep, following the directions on the bottle. That is it, no sanding, stripping, I literally did no other prep work. Once the cabinets were prepped and dried I started painting. I applied the milk paint with a sponge brush to avoid paint brush streaks. I started on the backs of the cabinets until I was confident enough to work on the front of the doors and the cabinets themselves. I wanted good coverage and General Finish instructions recommended that I do three coats. This took me about a week to complete. Than we moved on to the counter tops. 

I am sure by now you are wondering why I am not going to do the bottom cabinets than the counter tops. My reason, we concreted our counter tops with White Ardex Feather Finish Concrete and I didn't want the sanding between coats to mess up the cabinets, if I were to slip. I did enlist Tim's help with this project because I had to move fast before the concrete it started to dry. I prepped the counter the same way I did the cabinets but this time I used a 40 grit sandpaper in my palm sander and roughed up the top. We vacuumed up the dust, used soap and water to clean the counters again and let dry. The counters were a lot of apply and wait. We followed the mixing directions on the bag and used concrete and wall patching tools we had on hand. 

Once we had the concrete spread on to our desired level we let it dry. The next evening we would come home and start hand sanding with a 60 - 100 grit sandpaper to smooth the imperfections and then repeat the concrete layer. We did this four times then we had to let the concrete dry for 2 days, we gave it a week, without using it and before we could seal it. We sealed the concrete with two coats of Miracle Sealants, this helped ward off stains in the concrete. I then used AFM Safecoat Acrylacq Satin Finish, which added a gloss coat to the counter tops and is food safe, we did 2 coats of this as well. This project took us a good two and a half weeks because you had to allow 24 hours for the concrete layers to dry before applying another layer than the sealers and finish you had to wait 12 hours and we still had to run a house amidst all the kitchen chaos.

Finally we were able to put a sink back in and I was excited, until the sink didn't fit (it was to big) and we had to cut our newly concreted counter tops. I was mad that my husband didn't measure, He just said "oh it will fit," even after asking him 100 times before the counters were even resurfaced and during. 

Everything actually came out good, no cracks or anything and we finally got the sink to fit. Once the counters were finished I spent another week working on the bottom cabinets, prepping and painting as stated above. 

We put in an all white brick paneling for the back splash, I sealed the corners, cracks between paneling and where the counter met the back splash with the same stuff I patched the wall with. I wanted to give it an authentic brick and mortar look and it turned out like I imagined. I re-painted the  chalk white I used in the rest of the kitchen. 

Finally we installed the new hardware, faucet and lighting and all that was left was for me to make new curtains. We used to have plastic blinds in the windows but I didn't want those which were gross and well, broken. Since we have at least 3 windows in every room it is cheaper for me to make my own curtains than to purchase them. I found a fabric online, sorry I can't find or remember where from, and fell in love.

At first I was going to make my own roman shade but than realizing that I was never really going to open the curtains more than half way I decided to use a tension rod to hang them and another to drape the curtain over to make the appearance of a roman shade. 

Just a mock up but the concept I was going for. 

The kitchen was as complete as it was going to be for the time being. Yes, there are things I would love to do to the room still, like add a dishwasher, get rid of everything above the stove (including the microwave) and add a range and floating shelves and get rid of another cabinet by the sink and add a few more shelves. That will take time and convincing so I am calling it finished for now. After all, I love projects so this will give me something to look forward to, eventually. 

The Kitchen's Before and After:

The Dining Room Before and After:

It FINALLY looks like one cohesive room.

I am sure your wondering about the floors, ha, so am I. I am praying that when the time comes to re-do the floors there is a nice, and old, hardwood floor underneath that will just consist of sanding and sealing but only time till tell. 

Come back for more rooms re-do's and once we start DIY's we will bring you along for the ride, you never know you may get to see the table me made.