Sunday, October 5, 2014

Kitchen Befores and Afters

Hello, Dear Ones! I'm so excited today to get to share with you a little of our new/old house. We've been working like everything trying to get this place set up. If you follow me, you know we lived here a month sleeping on an air mattress as our rooms were being painted. We hired a painter but we ended up painting three rooms ourselves. Well today I want to show you the kitchen!
So, fair warning, long post, lots of snaps...
Okie dokie! This was the kitchen and most of the before snaps are from the MLS listings. Rather dark, really dark .
Ta dah! The cabinets were painted a pretty white, the walls a soft buttery yellow (I'm sorry, I forgot the color and I'm too lazy to go down into the basement to find out) and the island is painted just a tad bit darker than the walls. I love it!
Oh, my Lord! Can you believe that blue? Well, I knew we were going to fix that!
The soft yellow just looks so much fresher and lovely, don't you think? You can see the color of the island better in this snap.
Now the realtor used a wide lens on these snaps and I tried to get the same angles, but I don't have a wide lens.
So fresh. That's the den through that door on the right. Don't have that room quite finished yet.
Now I loved this pretty bay window and the view but the dark wood was killing me.
So nice and bright white came to the rescue! Isn't it pretty? I'm excited y'all so just agree with me! :) I have a lovely view of the forest, well there are houses back there but we just love it.I know I'm going to have fun decorating my window sill!
Here is the oven area. I really do like double ovens and am thankful for them.
So much better again.
I knew where the previous owner's microwave was would become a great little place to decorate. You can see what I did above.
The sink area.
What do you think? Oh, just ignore the towel, although it's lovely, under the coffee maker. Mr. Precious makes his coffee, I don't drink coffee, and he's a bit messy so the towel came to the rescue! :)
I scrubbed and scrubbed this area. I've still got to try and get the grout clean on the backsplash. Anyone have any incredible ways to get the grout white again? Oh, we bought a new faucet too.
It's been a long time since I've had a white porcelain sink. It is so pretty although it stains up quickly. Bar Keepers Friend saves the day for me. Now I left my little fridge in our old Texas house and was so blessed that the previous owners left a very nice huge (to me) fridge. Now at first I didn't think I could live with the black appliances in a white kitchen but it's growing on me and it's okay now. But...I do miss my Bosch dishwasher! Waa!
Here's the island. I love it in yellow. At first I thought about painting it black and some of you said that would be too harsh. You were right! I thought about red, love me some red, but decided against that too. On down the road if I want to change it I can...it's only paint, y'all. You can see there is tile on the floor at the cooking area and then the pretty wood floors throughout the rest of the house.
Here you can see the fridge. I love it that the freezer is on the bottom as I'm so short it makes it easier to snatch up things. The Lord is so good and has blessed us so much! We couldn't have a very nice or very large fridge in our old house because there was no room. We asked our buyers if they wanted it and they said yes so we left it. This black fridge is so much nicer than the one we had and I'm so grateful for it. The counter tops are Corian. I don't mind the white but the blue on the island shows every little anything. There are some scratches too and I've read where you can kinda sand it a bit to get rid of them. I haven't tried it yet. I would like a little bit of granite on the island, again, maybe someday.
The old knobs were brassy and had those fingernail thingys behind them so you would scratch the cabinet fronts and they reminded me of snakes. We took those snakey things off and I went to look for knobs. Couldn't find what I liked so I rethought the original knobs. They were very heavy and nice (just brassy) so I just sprayed them with Rustoleum in a brushed nickle and they turned out beautifully. I saved us a little bit of money doing this too! I'm talented like that, you know! :)
Speaking of snakes. I do not like those snakey pendants hanging down over the island. Don't those little metal thingys look like snakes to you? In time Mr. Precious says we'll change them.
Are you still with me? I hope so. Now just to show you I'm a bit of a hoarder, well, I keep things a long time. I made these little valances for my old kitchen about 15 or 16 years ago. I used to have a blue and yellow kitchen before blogging. I was opening up boxes and there they were and I thought...they'll work in the kitchen for a while. So I poked em up there. They don't look too bad do they?
Here's my pretty view of the forest when I'm doing dishes. There was no grass because of the trees but we've had some shady grass seed put down and it's growing like everything! Leaves are falling down like rain and the acorns! They wake us up sometimes at night! They are hitting hard!
I know this is not the kitchen but I wanted to show you the front door before and...
the front door now! I told you I had painted my front door red! I love it even though the door is a bit banged up!
Well, I hope you've enjoyed my kitchen tour! I haven't hung anything up on the walls yet but I keep telling myself...one step at a time.

I'll leave you with a little Note Song ~

A Beautiful Morning

It's a beautiful mornin', ahhh
I think I'll go outside a while
And jus' smile
Just take in some clean fresh air, boy
Ain't no sense in stayin' inside
If the weather's fine an' you got the time
It's your chance to wake up and plan another brand new day
Either way
It's a beautiful mornin', ahhh
Each bird keeps singin' his own song
So long
I've got to be on my way, now
Ain't no fun just hangin' around
I've got to cover ground, you couldn't keep me down
It just ain't no good if the sun shines
When you're still inside
Shouldn't hide, still inside, shouldn't hide
Ahhhh oh! (shouldn't hide) ah ah oh
(Do do waaa, do do waaa)
There will be children with robins and flowers
Sunshine caresses each new waking hour
Seems to me that the people keep seeing
More and more each day, gotta say, lead the way
It's okay, wednesday, thursday, it's okay
(Ahhh) monday, wednesday, friday, weekday, ah ah ohhh
(Do do waaa)
Ah ah oh oh (do do aaaa)
Wooooo oo oo oh oh oh ah wo do waa
Ohhhhhhh .oh oh oh
~ sung by the Rascals


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