What's Cooking in the Kitchen

After six years of living in our home with the honey oak colored cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms, we've decided to pull the trigger - of our paint sprayer that is! We're taking the project in small, manageable steps since we are doing it all ourselves and only when we have enough free time on a weekend to get things done. It's tricky with small children and a very full schedule, but it's going well and I'm so happy with the results!

The first place Ben decided to start work on was this bank of cabinets, it was a large area with lots of doors and drawers, but nothing too tricky. So he took off all the d&d's and began sanding, I jumped in with helping prime and paint the framework when possible. Then Ben sprayed the d&d's outside.

When my dad saw that we had begun work, he immediately volunteered to come over and help rip out the short cabinet and replace the lighting.

Buh-bye ugly florescent lights!

The ugly box light over the sink had a surprise for us, a nice big hole that would need patching!

But wow did it already feel so much bigger and OPEN in the kitchen!

Unfortunately there was a lot of drywall that needed patching and the whole box inside where the florescent lights were needed texturing. The good news is we had a fabulous little helper!

She even brought her own tools!

I decided I wanted to hang pendant lights above the now open counter area. So we devised a way to figure out their placement and the length we wanted.

We took the light junction boxes and taped them to the ceiling then we hung paper plates with a bottom circumference the same size as the future pendent lights. This allowed us to move them around and figure out exactly where we wanted to place them.

Then the guys cut the holes for where they would mount them.

And they cut the holes for all the new LED can lights.

Then they applied "mud" or joint compound to the ceiling to give it that lovely orange-peel texture that all the houses around here have.

We didn't want the rest of the house getting messy so they hung up lots of plastic.

And because we removed all the lights in the room they had to get creative when the sun went down!

Such a great team! I'm so lucky to have such great guys!!!

Then came wiring! We connected the new pendent lights to the same switch that the light over the sink is on.

Helper always at the ready!

Hooray the new pendent lights are up, we have light!!!

Running the wires was tricky because of all the support rafters, they had to go up and over and in and out of the itchy insulation, but they did it!

And look at that result!!!

Now the plastic could come down, dance party!!!

 It already felt so different and like a whole new kitchen!

But they didn't stop there, to make the box where the lights were look like it was supposed to be this way my dad encouraged us to add molding. And then it all needed painting.

And I couldn't let him go home without installing my new hood for over the stove. The old one was a lovely shade of yellow that could not stay once the cupboards got painted white.

Ooooo white!

The box claimed one person could install it on their own, hahaha! Yes, with their EZ mount brackets it could rest in place, but really this job definitely needed two people to get it done.

Then we had to stop work for an important wedding! Geeze Ben, why don't you get dressed up next time you get married!

Another progress shot for you.

A few weeks later we decided we had enough time to do another section.

Yay more progress! I've also been making progress updates on my Instagram stories and even have a story section all on our progress saved on my profile, you can check that out here @clearwatercottage
Just look for the little circle called Kitchen Reno.

And that's where we have left off for now. We still have a lot more to paint and I have dreams of building a cover to go over the hood to make it look like a built-in. We'll get there, maybe by the end of summer we'll be all done.