Taking A Risk: Painted Cabinet Style

Today over at The Nesting Place there is a linky party going on! It's about taking risks. This honestly couldn't have come at a more perfect time for me. Lately, I have been taking plenty of risks (for me anyways!). Two weeks ago I (finally) started this blog. I have been considering doing this for many, many months but kept being too chicken to take the plunge. I wasn't sure that I was capable of doing it. Now it's two weeks later and I already can't quite figure out why I waited so long. What did I have to lose?

Aside from starting this blog, I have taken other risks such as, ripping down cabinets as a first step to revamping my kitchen. The second step I took was partially influenced by The Nester's post regarding taking risks in your home. After reading her post I made this comment on her blog...

...and stayed true to my word! The next day I went to town painting my laminate countertops, which you can read more about here. I had planned on linking up to the party with that post but I dove into yet another project in my kitchen. (I'm feeling motivated!) Painting my kitchen cabinets!

I have never loved our cabinets. There is nothing functionally wrong with them but I was never a fan of them. When we first moved in I tried to convince myself into liking them by changing the hardware to Oil Rubbed Bronze knobs but it didn't help. I even toyed with the idea of just changing the backsplash. After almost a year of living with them my feelings haven't changed.

I have wanted white cabinets since before we even owned a home. The Hubby isn't overly fond of white cabinetry but agreed to letting me paint them in an attempt to make our kitchen more aesthetically pleasing. After reading this post over at Centsational Girl's I thought I would put Rustoleum's Cabinet Transformation's to the test.

I purchased the kit from my local Home Depot and had it tinted to Pure White. According to Rustoleum they recommend using two coats of the tinted base. The above picture is after the second coat. This obviously won't do. Onto a third coat. If any of you are familiar with this product you know that it does not cover painting the interior of the cabinets. Unfortunately, this cabinet requires that the interior be painted because it has glass doors. (This is definitely the only time that I have considered it unfortunate to have glass doors! I love them for displaying my dishes and stemware!)

This is definitely a very slow and tedious process, despite not having to sand or prime my cabinetry. I spent my Friday night watching Fried Green Tomatoes and Waitress while deglossing cabinets for approximately 5 hours and I didn't even finish! I was hoping to have the cabinets painted by the end of the weekend but because I am going solo on this project it just didn't happen. Hopefully by weeks end I will have my kitchen functioning again!

At this point I'm not sure whether my risk is going to pay off or not. I'm sure hoping that it will. Hopefully I can share my success with all of you soon!

PS- I'm hoping to share a Before & After tomorrow so make sure to drop by!

My Kitchen: A Work In Progress

Hello there! As I mentioned yesterday I'm working on making some changes in our kitchen. Our kitchen is small and on top of that it has low ceilings. Oh and I forgot to mention a brick wall. When we first looked at our house the exposed brick was one of the things that I really liked. It was unique especially given the history of our home. (The original part of the house was built in the 1930s and was a small brick home. In the early 1970s the previous owners purchased the property from family and hired an architect to build an addition. The exposed brick is an original exterior wall of the house.) Here is what the kitchen looked like when we first saw it...

(This picture was actually taken directly from the listing on Fizber.com.)

 However, over the past couple of months I've grown tired of looking at the somewhat dingy dark brick. It seems to suck all the light out of the room. Exposed brick does work in some spaces and I was hoping it would work for me but it just seems to make me feel like my kitchen is always dirty. With the being said painting the brick is on my list of things to do. Even though it will be covered with a layer of paint it will still add some nice texture and architetural interest to the room I think.

Anywho, that is what I was working with before I got all antsy and started taking cabinets and things down. This is currently what that same corner looks like...

Obviously this is a slightly different angle but you can see that the cabinet currently resides on the floor instead of the wall. We also took another cabinet down that was above the fridge. This cabinet had to go regardless because our refrigerator prevents the doors from being opened and closed. This is what that beautiful corner now looks like...

And for a disgusting close up....

Yes, I know. Not the most appetizing picture but sometimes things have to look worse before they look better. Some spackle and paint and it'll be good as new! And that will not happen on it's own unfortunately so I am off to spackle my little heart out!